Should a general election be held tomorrow, the Labour Party would win with a lead of 10.8% over the Nationalist Party, statistician Vincent Marmara said on Sunday following his latest survey.

He said in a Facebook post that the Labour Party is enjoying the support of 53% of voters while 42.2% would choose the PN.

4.8% would opt for other political parties.

The survey was held between January 20 and 26 - before reports that Joseph Muscat could contest the European Parliament elections. It involved a sample of 1,000 people. 

He said the figures showed a shift of 1.7% from the PL to the PN since the last general election, but were an election to be held tomorrow, a substantial number of people were saying they would not vote, and turnout would be a low of 71%.

Still, the gap between the major political parties would be some 27,000 in favour of the PL, comfortable for the ruling party but well below what it achieved at the last general election. 

Leaders' popularity

The survey results also show that Labour leader and Prime Minister Robert Abela is trusted by 20.9% more than PN leader Bernard Grech.

Survey participants were asked who they preferred to be prime minister.

44.2% opted for Abela and 23.3% for Grech. 10.8% said they did not trust anyone, 12.9% did not know and 8.8% said they trusted somebody else. The leaders of both political parties made small gains, although Abela gained more than Grech.