Election Desk: Highlights from the second week of the campaign

Welcome to the Election Desk. This is where we round up the major headlines of the last 24 hours, together with some of the more light-hearted and funnier sides of the campaign trail.

It’s the second week of the electoral campaign and each day whipped up political pledges, counter-proposals and controversy.

The mystery fuel smuggler

Who is Malta’s biggest fuel smuggler? We’re still not sure.

The week’s biggest flashpoint started when the PN proposed developing a Mediterranean fuel hub at Hurd’s Bank. Alex Borg pitched this as an easy earner that would generate €450 million in revenue within three years while creating 150 high-value jobs.

Then Robert Abela dropped a grenade on the proposal. He alleged it was connected to “the biggest fuel smuggler in the country”.

He didn’t name the person, and instead said he would reveal the identity only if the PN first disclosed its list of experts behind the plan.

Borg responded with a sworn declaration denying he ever met a fuel smuggler or anyone involved in criminal activity in connection with the proposal.

As things stand now, we still do not know who Abela was referring to. One of the PN’s candidates poked fun and said he’s the smuggler, because after all, it was him who wrote up the pledge with a group of experts.

The meek shall inherit the world (untaxed)

One of the major proposals from the PN this week is that a Nationalist government would scrap succession taxes on inherited property, family businesses and property donations between family members.

Labour immediately fired back on these proposals. Finance Minister Clyde Caruana held a press conference to say that the PN’s numbers “do not add up”. He flagged a €250 million discrepancy in the party’s tax overhaul, but the PL’s counter-offer was more modest. Instead, Labour would reduce stamp duty for family business transfers from 5% to 1.5% when passed between family members.

Technically, Malta has no inheritance tax. What the PN is proposing is to scrap stamp duty on inherited property and family business transfers. Abela also gave a long-winding explanation of this in an episode of the Isma’ Dean podcast, using a nuclear family unit of John, Mary and Mark to explain how a Labour Party will do things differently.

Omar Rababah shows us how it’s done

Omar Rababah, a Muslim social worker and activist, announced his candidacy with the Labour Party after Abela personally asked him to contest. But what followed was less inspiring.

He was faced with a wave of racist and xenophobic comments on social media through the weekend and into the second week of the campaign.

People targeted Rababah over his faith and Syrian heritage, questioning whether the two are compatible with Maltese politics. Nonetheless, he pushed through and submitted his nomination, and the Labour Party executive approved his candidacy for the sixth and seventh districts.

Party leaders were careful in their responses. Borg said the PN was always and will always be against racism, but when pressed on why his party had stayed silent, he didn’t say much else.

Rababah said he would run a clean campaign focused on poverty, homelessness and dialogue, and that he intended to ignore the slurs.

Algorithms on the campaign trail

Malta’s first AI-era election is producing exactly the content you would expect. Anonymous Facebook and TikTok pages have been flooding feeds with AI-generated images and videos targeting both major parties.

Beyond the memes, several troll accounts have cropped up, embracing AI to create low-quality AI-generated posts intended to influence people’s political views.