The Labour Party is enjoying a 22-point lead over the Nationalist Party, according to a Misco survey commissioned by The Sunday Times of Malta.
Asked which party they intended to vote for in next month’s European Parliament elections, 59% of respondents said they would vote for the Labour Party compared to 37% for the Nationalist Party. This is broadly in line with previous polls carried out by other organisations.
There were 2%of respondents who said they would vote for Alternativa Demokratika and 2% for the Democratic Party.
Read: Labour well ahead as EP election nears
Based on these percentages, the most likely outcome of the election would be four seats for Labour (a gain of one) and two seats for the PN (a loss of one).
However, since Malta has the single transferable vote electoral system, what will eventually determine the number of seats is not the number one preferences but the way votes get transferred from one candidate to another. This means a five-to-one seat victory for Labour, while unlikely, cannot be ruled out.
A 37% vote for the PN would be the lowest ever for the party in the post-Independence era; in the last European election in 2014 it won 40% of the vote, while in the 2017 general election it managed just under 44%.
The PN is also facing a problem of getting its support base to vote. Among those who voted for the Labour Party in the 2017 general election, 77% said they intend voting in the European elections while only 68% of those who voted Nationalist declared their intention to cast their vote next month.
Miriam Dalli and Alfred Sant emerged as the most popular PL candidates for the MEP elections, with Roberta Metsola and Frank Psaila top among Nationalists.
Respondents were also asked to name the most important issues which they believe Malta is facing at the moment. Immigration (an influx of foreigners of all nationalities) was the number one issue, mentioned by 28% of respondents. In a similar Misco survey two years ago, only 5% of respondents had mentioned immigration.
The next most important national issue identified by respondents was traffic, at 19% compared to 5% two years ago, followed by “too much construction” (10%) and corruption (10%).
Financial issues (25%) and traffic (17%) topped the list of personal challenges.