The rise of Malta’s political orphans

Once the Berlin Wall came down, and the Cold War was over, people began to seriously ask what the world would be like from now on.

The Cold War had been a struggle of opposing beliefs – mostly capitalism against communism, the West against the Soviet Union and its allies. Francis Fukuyama became well known for saying that liberal democracy had won the big ideological fight of the 1900s.

He didn’t mean that problems, wars or arguments between politicians and nation states would stop, but that liberal democracy combined with market capitalism had become the final dominant model of government given that Fascism had been defeated in the Second World War and Communism had collapsed with the Soviet Union.

This idea is important for understanding how political parties in many western nations have developed after the Cold War. It does not mean that Fukuyama himself said that political parties would become the same. Rather, his theory helps explain how, after the Cold War, the range of ideological alternatives became narrower.

Left and right-wing parties have found themselves getting closer to the middle, especially in how they approach the economy.

They’re more likely to be competing over who can run the same economic system more effectively, rather than presenting completely different ideas of what society should be like.

In Malta, like many other EU countries, political contestation has become more about how well things are being done, how safe things are, reducing taxes, and what benefits are on offer, and less about fundamental principles.

And this is where neoliberalism fits in. Neoliberalism isn’t always a set of beliefs like socialism or nationalism. It’s more helpful to think of it as a way of making and applying policies, or a logic for the economy, that prioritises things like free markets, being competitive, investment from private companies, deregulation, cutting taxes, the government not getting involved in some areas, and economic growth being the key to measuring how well you are doing.

Malta was not immune to this change as in recent years.

Malta has witnessed strong economic growth, low unemployment, higher consumption and a general improvement in material living standards.

This model has proved to be successful on paper and in practice, creating wealth, generating employment and allowing governments to spread the benefits across different sections of society.

If two major parties buy into the same basic economic model, and if both mainly compete by promising more financial support, more schemes, more tax relief and more benefits, then voters may start asking a deeper question: what is the real difference?

Malta has always had unusually high voter turnout compared to other member states. But the trend is shifting. Official data indicate a decline in turnout from 95.7% in 2003 to 93.3% in 2008, 93.0% in 2013, 92.1% in 2017, 85.6% in 2022. In last Saturday’s election, turnout slightly increased to 87.4%. Whether this increase represents a temporary fluctuation remains to be seen.

If voters feel unrepresented long enough, they first withdraw from politics but come back through protest voting

This political disengagement may be explained by different realities from distrust in institutions to the perception that politics will not make the real and needed change.

While these may contribute to people’s choice not to vote, another reason could be that people don’t see any difference between the parties in the contest and feel like politically orphaned voters. A politically orphaned voter is a person who feels ideologically orphaned, excluded or under-represented by both major political parties.

Hence the question arises: how is it that the non-hardcore and floating voter feels politically orphaned when the two major parties are almost indistinguishable except for their home colours?

Maybe that is why promises alone do not always increase interest. They may be raising bigger questions about what kind of country Malta is turning into. Is the economy forming society, or is society forming the economy?

Are the political parties merely trying to make up for the problems that the same growth model has created or are they looking for solutions?

The real warning for Maltese politics is that abstention is not only a question of turnout.

It shows that politics is no longer touching the parts of public life that cannot be made up for when people stay home even when they are given subsidies, perks, tax breaks and other financial incentives.

Even when they take financial aid people still feel under-represented in other areas: housing, overpopulation, quality of life and the future of the country.

The danger is that voters who don’t feel connected to any party may stay disconnected for a long time.

If the major parties focus on offering benefits and don’t talk about bigger issues like how we develop our country, how we live our lives, and whether we can trust our institutions more people might start to look for other options.

These other options, radical or extreme, can be appealing not necessarily because they offer better solutions but because they give people a clear sense of what they stand for, a sense of belonging and someone to blame for their problems. When mainstream politics seems similar to each other, too focused on just giving out benefits or too technical and complicated, extreme politics might seem like the only one that speaks plainly.

Therefore, politically orphaned voters deserve serious attention.

Abstention is not extremism, but it can be the antechamber of extremism if the politically orphaned voter is ignored. If voters feel unrepresented long enough, they first withdraw from politics but come back through protest voting.

The danger for Malta is that voters who no longer have a home in the two-party system may eventually find a home in movements that offer not solutions but anger, blame and rupture. Therefore, silence is not the same as abstention.

Sometimes it is the quiet form of the same frustration that extreme parties later express loudly.

Lydon Vella is reading for an MA in European Politics, Economics and Law.