The declarations, covering 29 Labour and 23 Nationalist MPs, show a stark spending divide between the two parties. PL candidates declared €571,877 among them, an average of €20,424 each, while PN candidates declared €162,857, an average of €7,081.

In total, Labour candidates outspent their Nationalist counterparts by three and a half to one.

The gap is starkest at the top of the table. The fourteen highest spenders are all Labour candidates, eleven of whom declared over €26,000. The highest-spending Nationalist MP, Beppe Galea, ranks fifteenth at €17,368.

At the other end of the scale, Prime Minister Robert Abela and Opposition leader Alex Borg declared no campaign expenditure at all. Party spending falls outside the individual candidate cap, and Amphora Media has already reported how most donations to political parties remain undisclosed to voters.

Minister Joe Etienne Abela, the highest spender, did not declare the source of his funds. He was one of 35 MPs (including PM Robert Abela and Alex Borg)  who listed no donors in their campaigns – a combined €454,216.53 in spending with no declared donors.

The ten largest sums with no declared donors belonged to Cabinet members: Ministers Jo Etienne Abela, Chris Bonett, Keith Azzopardi Tanti, Jonathan Attard, Miriam Dalli, Silvio Schembri, Byron Camilleri, Clint Camilleri, Malcolm Agius Galea and PS Alison Zerafa Civelli. The spend ranged from €16,578 to €38,940.

Under the Electoral Commission’s 2026 guidance, a candidate cannot spend more than €20,000 for each district contested. Since the cap applies per district, a candidate contesting two districts has an effective ceiling of €40,000.

Five candidates declared totals within €1,800 of that two-district ceiling. Abela was followed by Ian Borg at €39,680, Rosianne Cutajar at €39,448.11, Christian Paul Bonett at €38,629.88 and Keith Azzopardi Tanti at €38,200.

What the declarations reveal

Beyond the headline figures, the declarations offer a rare glimpse into the donors who fund campaigns.

Justice Minister Owen Bonnici filed the most extensively itemised donor list, naming nine sources. These included €10,000 each from “Family Abela” and “Family Felice” and €2,000 from “Family Mangion”, while one donor’s name was illegible on the form itself.

Rosianne Cutajar received €18,000 in donations for ‘food and beverages’ and ‘sound and audiovisual’ from Daniel Farrugia, her partner. Her declared total of €39,448.11 places her just over €500 below the two-district ceiling.

Ian Borg declared funds raised through “friends of candidate” coffee mornings and small gatherings at venues including Villa Arrigo and Xara Lodges. He also listed donations as “each under €500” – meaning they remain anonymous.

Where the money went

Hire costs were the single largest expense category across all candidates, at €204,979. But close behind was “other miscellaneous expenses” at €191,621, meaning roughly a quarter of all declared campaign spending sits under a catch-all label with no further breakdown. For example, “other miscellaneous” accounted for €20,637.63 of Minister Abela’s total.

Printing (€102,248) and advertising (€100,952) accounted for a further €200,000 between them, followed by postage (€50,464), personal expenses (€36,749), stationery (€34,446) and travel (€9,992). Over the years, political parties spent hundreds of thousands to advertise on Meta. Many candidates defied Meta’s recent political advertising ban, running short-lived ads.

The dataset covers only the 52 elected candidates, not the full field of candidates who contested the election, and fewer than the full complement of MPs. Data for other candidates was not provided. All figures are as declared by the candidates.

You can find more political finance data on Open Malta.