By Sabrina Zammit, Daiva Repečkaitė, Evy Coeckelbergs and Julian Bonnici

• Open Malta, a new political data transparency platform by Amphora Media, exposes political social media advertising.
  
• Labour Party, its MPs and MEPs ran 5,626 ads (estimated cost: €500,000)
  
• Nationalist Party, its MPs and MEPs ran 4,364 ads (estimated cost: €415,000)
  
• Social media advertising spikes in election seasons:
  • The 2022 General Election:
    • PL and MPs = 1,402 
    • PN and MPs = 834
    • PL alone = 180
    • PN alone = 158
    • Robert Abela = 148
    • Bernard Grech = 277
  • The 2024 MEP & Local Council Election Year:
    • PL, MEPs, MPs  = 504
    • PN, MEPs, MPs = 340
    • Most Ads: Thomas Bajada (168)
    • Second: David Casa (152)
    • Third: Robert Abela (88)
      

Between 2019 and 2025, the Labour Party, the Nationalist Party, and their elected MPs and MEPs ran at least 9,900 political ads on Facebook and Instagram, according to data compiled by Open Malta, a new political transparency platform.

The figures, drawn from Meta’s Ad Transparency database, come with a caveat: Meta doesn’t publish exact spending, only ranges. At the upper bound, the two parties and their candidates spent up to €1,413,130; the midpoint estimate is €911,167, and the floor is €407,588.

Across every scenario, Labour and its candidates outspent the Nationalists by an average of €85,000. As of 14 May 2026, the Labour Party’s Facebook page has approximately 68,000 followers, while the Nationalist Party’s page has around 46,000.

Those ads landed in a country where the platforms dominate. 

A Broadcasting Authority survey found Facebook is used by 89% of online Maltese, with Instagram a distant second at 49%. A 2023 Eurobarometer survey found 70% of Maltese respondents get their news through social media, climbing to 86% among 15- to 24-year-olds, the highest figure recorded across any age group.

Who runs the most on social media ads?

Across the full dataset, the Labour Party, its MPs and MEPs ran 5,626 ads (at a mid-range cost of €500,000), while its Nationalist Party counterparts ran 4,364 ads (at a mid-range cost of €415,000)

At the party level, the PL’s own page (Partit Laburista) ran 474 ads, more than double the 198 the PN’s page (Partit Nazzjonalista) ran.

Individual leadership pages of Robert Abela, Bernard Grech and others add a significant layer to those figures. 

Since becoming Prime Minister in 2020, Robert Abela’s personal page has run 456 ads, funded by the Labour Party, generating between 20 million and 23.9 million impressions over the years.

A similar pattern holds on the PN across the three leaders Abela has faced since taking office. 

Bernard Grech, who led the party from 3rd October 2020 to 10th September 2025, ran 555 ads on Meta platforms, generating between 16.4 million and 19.7 million impressions in total. From January 2024 onwards, those ads were paid for directly by Grech himself rather than the PN.

His successor, Alex Borg, has run 445 ads. In 2025 alone, the year of his election as party leader, his page ran 288 ads, more than double the 140 that his leadership rival, Adrian Delia, ran. 

Since winning the leadership, Borg has published just two adverts, with Meta’s records indicating both were paid for directly by Borg himself.

Who pays for ads is a different matter. Here, the Labour Party’s Facebook page is the top spender, with 908 ads paid for, followed by Raymon Abela with 686 and the PN with 667.

Adverts Paid By	Total Ads
Partit Laburista	908
Raymond Abela	686
Partit Nazzjonalista	667
Alex Agius Saliba	603
Alex Borg	445
Owen Bonnici	391
Bernard Grech	364
David Casa	356
Graziella Galea	347
Clyde Caruana	300
Roberta Metsola	297

Elections Drive Political Social Media Ads

2022 General Election:

Election cycles drive significant surges in social media ads. During the 2022 general elections, the PL, PN and respective candidates ran 2,230 ads across the little-over-a-month campaign (20th February 2022 to 26th March),

However, the gap is significant. The PL and its elected candidates ran 1,402 ads, dwarfing the 834 ads run by the PN and its candidates.

At an individual level, party leaders dominated campaign advertising. Bernard Grech’s page carried the most ads at 277, just under double Abela’s 148.

Ray Abela, a PL MP, issued the most ads of any PL candidate, including PM Abela and the Labour Party itself (180), running 216 ads during the election season. 

2024 MEP & Local Council Elections:

2024 was a double election year with both the MEP and Local Council votes taking place.

This campaign was marked by candidates spending more on social media advertising than the parties themselves.

PL MEP Thomas Bajada (168) and PN MEP David Casa (152) ran the most ads during the season, followed by Prime Minister Robert Abela (88) and Owen Bonnici, the Minister for National Heritage, the Arts and Local Government (81).

Pages advertised	Total Ads
Ray Abela	781
Alex Agius Saliba	608
Adrian Delia	598
Bernard Grech	555
Labour Party	474
Robert Abela	456
Alex Borg	445
Owen Bonnici	393
David Casa	370
Graziella Galea	365

How we collected the data:

The data was collected from Meta’s Ad Library, its official transparency database for political and issue-based advertising across Facebook and Instagram. Each political page, including those of politicians and political parties, was reviewed. 

Data extraction was carried out using a third-party data collection tool, after which the dataset was manually cleaned and verified. Each entry has a unique AD ID assigned by Meta.

In 2024, following the European Union’s transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising regulation, the company decided to phase out political, electoral, and social-issue ads in the EU in October 2025. The rule does not impact news organisations.

Google made a similar decision, removing the EU from its Google Ads Transparency Centre and from political ad-serving on YouTube.  The archive is inaccessible.

Meta’s ban on political advertising in the EU limits the availability of new political ad data in the region. Concerns remain that some political actors could attempt to evade the rules by misclassifying political advertising or avoiding political labels altogether