The election brought the ruling Labour Party (PL) its fourth victory, with nearly 52% of the vote. Third parties and independents collected just over 3.5% among them.

Malta Today’s survey underestimated the PL’s performance by over 1 percentage point and was remarkably precise in estimating the performance of the opposition Nationalist Party (PN), with a difference of less than half a percentage point. However, it predicted over 5% would go to third parties and a lower turnout than in 2022. This did not happen. Earlier surveys by Malta Today predicted an even larger share for third parties.

The Times of Malta overestimated the PL’s share of the vote by 1.7 percentage points and underestimated the PN’s by a similar margin. It does not look like much, but, taken together, the Times of Malta’s survey had the least accurate estimate of the gap between the two parties. The Times of Malta predicted a much larger gap in the PL’s favour, at 33,600 voters. The gap estimated in the April survey was much closer to the actual election outcome.

This survey was extremely precise in the estimate of third-party vote, placing it at 3.6%. Earlier surveys predicted a similar result.

The Times of Malta also made a very accurate prediction of the turnout, which was slightly overestimated. The turnout predicted in The Times of Malta’s 17th of June survey was 87.9% – very close to the actual figure of 87.4%.

The latest survey by Vincent Marmara also severely overestimated the gap between the two main parties, projecting it at 30,000. Accordingly, it overestimated the PL’s performance and underestimated the PN’s performance by under 2 percentage points to each side. 

It was precise (within half a percentage point) in estimating the share that third parties and independents would get. Across four surveys he conducted since February, the gap was consistent and much larger than it ultimately turned out to be. Turnout predictions in surveys earlier in May were similar to Malta Today’s and much lower than the actual turnout.

All in all, it appears that Malta Today’s survey was the most precise in capturing preferences between the two establishment parties, but overestimated the protest vote (third-party vote and non-voting). The Times of Malta and Vincent Marmara’s surveys predicted a much more favourable outcome for the PL than what materialised.

But what shaped the vote itself? Which promises landed? And, with the campaigning over, which of them can realistically be delivered? This is a look back at the issues that drove the campaign and at the ones that barely featured.

Stability in the Economy & Energy 

Throughout the campaign, Prime Minister Robert Abela cast himself and his government as the experienced, trusted hands needed to steer the country through what he repeatedly called “global crises”; the reason, he said, that he had called a snap election in the first place. 

He worked to draw a sharp line between his own record and the relative inexperience of Alex Borg, who is still only 30 and less than a year into the Nationalist Party leadership.

Abela made repeated digs against Borg’s economic credentials in each national debate. This line was echoed among key Labour Party figures, including Finance Minister Clyde Caruana.

However, Borg’s performance, given the relative proximity to his ascending to the top of the PN, may concern the PL moving forward.

Malta has experienced strong economic growth. The European Commission’s spring forecast projects Malta’s economy to grow by 3.7% this year, the highest rate in the EU.

“The expansion is driven by robust domestic consumption and a thriving tourism sector, and is projected to moderate to 3.7% in 2026 and 3.6% in 2027 as external economic conditions become less favourable,” it reads.

Maltese households have been relatively shielded from the price shocks felt elsewhere. The prices of water, electricity, gas and fuel have held steady thanks to government intervention. 

Energy Support Measures – subsidies designed to shield households and businesses from rising global energy prices – are projected at €172 million for 2026, bringing the running total to €968 million by year’s end.

Abela was unmovable on keeping fuel subsidies, and pressed the claim that Borg and a Nationalist government would scrap them.

Yet the cost of living remains a real anxiety, and not every voter feels the much-cited economic boom is reaching them. At the end of March 2026, central government debt stood at €11.4 billion — €621.8 million higher than a year earlier. 

Labour’s headline pledge was a yearly “super bonus” for eligible workers, paid directly by the government. Beyond that, its offer leaned on expansion rather than reinvention: widening the first-time buyers’ scheme, lifting pensions and improving working conditions.

Borg and the PN pitched a different emphasis. Their economic case opened with tax cuts for SMEs and start-ups and the removal of inheritance tax, then widened to include an industrial strategy.

Borg also promised to cut public debt, subsidise long-term rentals for young couples and low-income earners, and match pensions to the cost of living.

The marquee idea, though, was an offshore fuel hub, and it became a campaign flashpoint. Abela attacked it repeatedly, at one point claiming, infamously, that it had first been pitched to him by a “contrabandist.”

On energy, the PN floated “aggressive” solar and wind subsidies and pilot projects for Gozo.

Traffic

Traffic consistently ranks among voters’ top concerns, and it is costly to leave it as is. 

According to Malta’s National Transport Master Plan, congestion costs the economy €770 million in 2025 and is projected to reach €917 million a year by 2030. That figure excludes environmental costs, CO₂ and other air pollutants, expected to add a further €195.4 million a year

In April 2026, days before the election was called, the government and Transport Minister Chris Bonett announced a revised €2.8 billion ‘La Valette’ light rail line, and Labour campaigned on it. 

Borg highlighted transport issues and championed his party’s mass transportation system, saying he was ready to resign if it failed. He regularly criticised the government for proposing a mass transport system but failing to deliver beyond the study stage.

Both parties avoid discouraging private car use. The PL has said it will keep subsidising fossil fuels, while the PN has hinted at reducing car dependence through changes to urban design and infrastructure to support alternatives.

Tourism, Population & Migration

This campaign was set against the backdrop of growing concerns about migration, overtourism, population, and a collapsing birth rate. 

Malta’s tourism numbers have more than doubled in a decade. The population has ballooned past 575,000. Absorbing that surge has eroded housing affordability, intensified development, stretched local capacity to manage waste and noise, and fed rising resident dissatisfaction. 

Yet despite concerns among residents, the issues did not form part of key campaign issues. Omar Rababah’s candidacy and questions about the development of a mosque drove the discussion.

The proposals on the table mostly addressed how to redistribute flows and revenue rather than curb low-cost tourism itself.

The Labour Party focused on giving councils direct revenue from outdoor dining permits and tourists’ eco-taxes, in addition to the incumbent administration’s reforms targeting short lets and hotels.

Both present incentives for family-friendly policies, but on migration, both focused on ramping up existing policies. 

The PN, on its part, presented a joint task force between the police and army on irregular migration and drug crimes, which was criticised by the PL.

The Environment

Environment and climate are regularly among the top 5 concerns for Maltese people and the 4th-highest concern for young people. Despite its booming economy, Malta lags behind most EU countries in key sustainable development metrics.

It was a focus of the election, but more on economic value and energy dependence.

The PL said it would reach a 25% renewable energy by 2030. Fourteen EU countries had already surpassed this target in 2024. It said it would also expand the shore-to-ship system, which, according to the latest data used by vessels 9% of the time.

It has pledged to continue the practice of hunting and reduce enforcement when offenders are caught committing environmental crime. The FKNK openly endorsed Gozo and Planning Minister Clint Camilleri, who is also responsible for the sector, during the election.

Subsidising fossil fuels has also received criticism.

The PN focused on investing in the green tech industry. But this push towards implementing legal safeguards against development on agricultural land, and an overhaul of planning policies and protection of ODZ.

It would also purchase private land in urban cores to create parks and gardens, introduce “aggressive” subsidies for solar and wind technology, and pilot projects for Gozo.

Like the PL, it said it would retain hunting and trapping despite court rulings.

Issues noticeably absent from the public debate:

Crime, Justice & Corruption

Malta is officially becoming safer. However, there is more domestic violence, drug-related, and environmental crime. Justice remains slow, and Malta continues to perform poorly on the EU’s justice scoreboard.

Corruption remains a significant issue. The Vitals case is ongoing, and several cabinet members resigned during the previous election amid major allegations. Roderick Galdes was even blocked from running.

However, Borg offered barely a whimper on the subject, choosing to focus on policy rather than on good governance issues. The PN had previously been accused of doing too little. It remains to be seen whether the party will ever commit to presenting major visions on both.

Equality, Education & Health

Malta’s changing economy and settlement patterns have affected different groups of the population unevenly. An equality and inclusion policy would help address gaps. However, it was among the weakest areas of the campaign.

Rarely a subject of political controversy, the education sector has seen several promises by both parliamentary parties. This is amid worrying trends: stagnating A-level attainment, disparities between state, church and independent schools, and gaps in women’s labour market attainment despite higher education.

On health, the PN made wide-ranging proposals, but as the campaign wore on, they seemed to be pushed further and further to the back. The Vitals case was referenced, but more for lost time and resources than for criminality. 

The gap is projected to be between 18,000 and 19,000. This was conceded by the Nationalist Party (PN).

The turnout was higher than in 2022.

In 2026, total voter turnout reached 87.42%, up by 1.8% from 2022.

Across the 2003, 2008, 2013, and 2017 general elections, the figure drifted downward yet never once fell below 92%. Then came 2022, when turnout slipped by roughly 7 points from the previous election to 85.6%.

The electorate itself has been steadily expanding. Between 2003 and 2022, the roll of registered voters grew by 19.2%, climbing from 297,930 to 355,075. By 2026, the number of eligible voters reached 356,832, a net gain of 1,767.

This year, the highest turnout was in the 7th district, and the lowest was in the 12th.

These are the results by district:

Many were not labelled as political at all. On Google, dozens of ads carrying the Labour Party’s electoral slogan were filed under categories such as “Arts and entertainment” and “Family and Community. One payer who is suspected to work within the Office of the Prime Minister.

For others, including ads for the Nationalist Party running on websites across Malta, the payer cannot be identified at all.

Amphora Media is tracking political social media advertising on its Open Malta platform.

Since the election was called on 27th April, candidates have run at least 615 ads on Facebook and Instagram. 

A further 142 ads for the Labour Party have appeared on Google, run either by its media arm, One Productions, or by Clive Farrugia. One Clive Farrugia is the head of secretariat at the Office of the Prime Minister – he did not respond to a right of reply asking him to confirm or deny whether he placed ads on Google, but he is seen reposting Robert Abela’s and PL’s posts on his Facebook profile.

From October 2025, Google and Meta stopped running electoral ads in the EU following the bloc’s expansion of its advertising transparency requirements. 

Since the rule change, Amphora Media has identified at least 1,200 ads on election candidates’ Facebook pages.  Before then, the PL, PN and their candidates ran over 9,900 ads on Facebook and Instagram.

In most cases, the candidates advertising on their personal profiles declared themselves as the payers. In some cases, it was a business associated with the candidate.

Yet there are some notable exceptions: the Office of the Commissioner for Animal Welfare is the indicated payer of a paid promotion on Fleur Abela’s personal page, which features the Labour Party’s electoral slogan, Int Malta. In response to Amphora Media’s questions, Abela said that she paid for the ad herself.

META ads run by candidates since 27th April 2026:

Most ads run by candidates since 31st October 2025:

Google: Political Ads Labelled As ‘Entertainment’ And ‘Family’ By One 

Since the snap election was called, Amphora Media identified 74 political ads on Google placed by One Productions Ltd. Some of them have since been removed. 

Although the ads were clearly political and included the PL’s electoral slogan, they were labelled as “Arts and entertainment”, “Family and Community” or “Business and industrial”.

A second advertiser placing ads on Google for the PL was Clive Farrugia. Amphora Media found 68 ads by him, labelled “News, Books and Publications”, “Jobs and Education” and others.

One Productions did not reply to Amphora Media’s questions about these ads. It has not been filing audited accounts, as required by Maltese law, since 2010.

The Nationalist Party is also running Google ads on websites across Malta. However, it is not possible to identify the payer on the platforms the ad is running.

Google did not reply when asked whether it considered these ads compliant with its policies.

What the EU actually requires and why the platforms opted out?

The EU did not ban political advertising. 

According to the Commission’s guidelines, very large online platforms and search engines have obligations under the Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising regulation when they provide political advertising services (e.g., publishing, delivering, or disseminating political advertising) for remuneration. 

Ad technology providers like Google are considered political advertising publishers jointly with the public-facing interface (e.g. a news website).

Meta has called the provisions ‘unworkable’, and Google said ads defined as political are difficult to identify at scale. Both decided to stop allowing political ads. Google’s policy also affects YouTube, and Meta’s policy covers Facebook and Instagram.

Meta: short-lived ads on personal pages

Meta defines political ads as “Made by, on behalf of or about a candidate for public office, a political figure, a political party, a political action committee or advocates for the outcome of an election to public office; or About any election, referendum or ballot initiative, including ‘go out and vote’ or election campaigns”.

Meta says it reviews ads for violation of its policy based on “specific components of an ad, such as images, video, text and targeting information, as well as an ad’s associated landing page or other destinations”. The review is automated, and a manual review is added: “in some cases”.

Amphora Media is informed that Meta considers political ads running on Maltese candidates’ pages non-compliant with its policy and rejects them when it becomes aware of them.

Facebook’s ad library reveals the scope of this whack-a-mole approach: although there are fresh ads any given day, political ads are routinely rejected, and those that were not caught often run for under a day.

The European Commission’s spokesperson said that “It is for national authorities to enforce the Regulation [on ad transparency]. It is for the sponsor of political ads – the person seeking to publish a political ad – to declare the political nature of the ad. However, once platforms become aware of an undeclared political ad, they need to take immediate measures to ensure the ad’s political nature is properly declared. If necessary, they must withhold the dissemination until this takes place.”

The spokesperson added that “The Commission may revise these guidelines in the future, to take into account the lessons learned from the implementation. The Commission will also take stock of the implementation with stakeholders through an implementation dialogue in the course of this year.”

Do voters care about the cost of living?

Survey respondents ranked price pressures among the top five concerns across the years and different surveys. The exact questions were not directly comparable, but a general trend is clear: whether it is cost of living, food prices, or inflation, people are deeply concerned.

In a 2022 survey of youth, respondents were asked how expensive it is to live in Malta. Millennials’ average score was 4.32 out of 5, and Gen Z’s was 4.15. Inflation was a concern for over half of Gen Z and over 40% of millennials.

Yet when the Times of Malta asked its website users how they were personally responding to the price shock in 2023, nearly one in five said they were doing nothing.

A Growing Economy And A Growing Debt

Those concerns sit against a backdrop of strong economic growth. The European Commission’s spring forecast projects Malta’s economy to grow by 3.7% this year, the highest rate in the EU.

“The expansion is driven by robust domestic consumption and a thriving tourism sector, and is projected to moderate to 3.7% in 2026 and 3.6% in 2027 as external economic conditions become less favourable,” it reads.

Growth, however, comes alongside a deficit: meaning the government spends more than it earns. Measured against GDP, that deficit has narrowed steadily to 2.2% of GDP in 2025 and is forecasted to remain below the EU’s 3% threshold.

Budget documents show Malta ran a deficit of €995 million in 2025 (above the expected €849 million), and is projected to be €852 million in 2026. At the end of March 2026, central government debt totalled €11.4 billion, €621.8 million higher than a year earlier. The debt-to-GDP ratio is expected to stabilise at around 46%.

Looking ahead, several pressures could trigger significant shocks. Malta’s economy leans heavily on labour migration and tourism, with the strains those bring; key sectors such as gaming are exposed to regulatory change; and the energy fuel subsidy is set to end.

How is the public sector cushioning the shocks?

Food continues to drive the retail price index in Malta, which tracks the price changes of key products over time. Housing also adds to inflation, but mainly in maintenance costs. 

The prices of water, electricity, gas and fuels are steady. However, the government intervenes in all of those sectors, notably with its Energy Support Measures – subsidies designed to shield households and businesses from rising global energy prices. These are projected at €172 million for 2026, bringing the total to €968 million by the end of the year.

As of February (latest data), the annual inflation rate was:

• 2.9% on food (excluding restaurants and takeaways),
• 2.3% on rent;
• 5.1% on house maintenance services;
• 1.6% on transport;
• 2.1% on pet supplies and services;
• 5.7% on restaurants and takeaways;
• 5.1% on furniture and furnishings.

Energy, water and fuels

Housing, water, electricity, gas and fuels account for 10% of the average household’s total spending, rising to 13% for low-income households.

Since 2022, the government has subsidised energy and fuel. EU institutions have criticised this policy for failing to protect vulnerable households or nudge people towards sustainable shifts. 

In addition to general subsidies, the government pays an energy benefit to residents earning less than €14,993 a year. The government subsidises the installation of water filters at homes, and socially vulnerable households can get help replacing inefficient appliances.

Still, Eurostat shows that nearly 8% of Malta’s residents were unable to keep their homes adequately warm when needed, below the EU average but more than in colder countries like Finland and Estonia. 

Food

A study by the Economic Policy Department found that the average household dedicated a quarter of its total expenditure to food and beverages, rising to almost 30% in low-income households.

In 2024, the government reached an agreement with importers to freeze wholesale prices of 400 goods prone to inflation. These are the products the government is subsidising:

                      The processing classification is based on the NOVA system

That year, about every tenth resident could not afford a meal with a source of protein, such as meat or fish, every other day – a share similar to that in France and Italy.

Housing

The Housing Authority runs a range of schemes to subsidise housing costs, including support for first-time buyers, loan subsidies, and assistance for social housing tenants, regular tenants and landlords, among others. 

Over the past decade, house prices in Malta have risen faster than the EU average; faster than in Italy and Cyprus, though more slowly than in Czechia, Hungary or Poland.. In 2024, 70% owned the home they lived in. Tenants, meanwhile, experienced steep rent increases since the pandemic, with rents about 1.5 times higher in 2024 than in 2015. 

The Maltese lived in the largest houses in the EU, with 2.2 rooms per person, more space than people in richer countries like the Netherlands and Luxembourg. 

Less than 4% lived in an overcrowded home; this is much lower than the EU average, and the share of people living in under-occupied homes (too large for the household size) was among the highest, at nearly two-thirds. This shows that some of Malta’s housing problems stem from inadequate design.

Transport

There are other subsidies for daily essentials, such as free school buses and free public transport for all residents of Malta. The latter scheme is financed through the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility, and it is unclear what will happen after its closure at the end of this year.

Despite promises to tackle traffic congestion, cost-of-living subsidies effectively support reliance on private cars. The fuel subsidy supports private internal combustion car owners, while the electricity subsidy supports electric car owners. Grants encourage drivers to purchase electric cars.

How much do households need to survive?

An analysis by the Economic Policy Department maps out the thresholds. Households with disposable income above €3,000 a month can already put something aside; the median in this group saves €163 a month. Those with a disposable income of €8,494 or more per month save a substantial share, with a median savings rate of 43%.

The study found that “couples with two children require a monthly income in excess of €3,700 per month to cover their monthly expenditure”. 

Median households of three or more adults without children had the highest savings rate, but median elderly couples, single parents, two adults with children, and two adults with at least one elderly person but without children had negative savings, meaning they were spending more than they were receiving. 

Low-income households spend more than they make, which may indicate reliance on credit, past savings, intergenerational support, or undeclared income. On the contrary, high-income households spend less than 60% of their income and keep the rest.

What to watch for

The two major parties are trying to outdo each other, promising cash benefits and tax cuts. But voters are increasingly asking how the government will pay for this without raising taxes. Malta’s GDP growth will lead to lower EU co-financing for infrastructure and similar projects in the future 

During the pandemic, Malta has tested a highly successful voucher scheme, encouraging residents to spend on local businesses. On the contrary, cash benefits may or may not stimulate the Maltese economy. Are all candidates convinced that this is the best use of taxpayer money?

The current subsidy structure supports people’s habits, such as car use, fossil fuel dependency, and ultra-processed food consumption. Is the election season the right time to debate whether it’s time to nudge people towards healthier choices?

Four years after Malta’s two largest parties endorsed a gender-corrective mechanism to lift women’s representation in Parliament, gender equality in political power has barely budged, and the 2026 candidate list suggests little will change.

Of the 162 candidates contesting Malta’s 2026 general election, just 28% are women. The same share that currently sits in Parliament, brought through in 2022 after the gender corrective mechanism kicked in. 

Aħwa Maltin, a minor political party, is the only party fielding a gender-balanced list. AD-PD, another third party, is the only party led by a woman. Of the two parties currently in Parliament, Labour is fielding nearly 39% women; the Nationalist Party, 20%.

According to the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), Malta ranks 16th in the EU for gender equality. EIGE notes a good state of equality in knowledge and health, but finds issues regarding money and power.

As Malta heads toward another male-dominated legislature, it’s worth asking: have reforms made a difference?

Power and democratic representation

In the 2022 election, the PL and PN endorsed the gender-corrective mechanism with the aim of bringing the share of women in parliament to 40%. With this mechanism, members from the under-represented gender are added rather than replacing members of the over-represented gender.

The result from the last election was 28% women. The corrective mechanism added 12 women to districts that would not otherwise have elected them. Without that top-up, five districts would have returned all-male MPs.

There was not a single district in which a woman won the most first-count votes.

“What we have here in Malta is not a gender quota, it’s a gender top-up,” says Sandra Gauci of AD-PD, the only woman leading a political party in this election.

Gauci favours mandating gender-balanced candidate lists and penalising parties that fail to comply.

2022 Election: Gender Corrective Mechanism Impact

What parties do once their MPs are in place matters too.  

Cabinet and shadow cabinet appointments are entirely within party control, and they signal who is taken seriously. A gender-balanced cabinet could send a clear message and give women greater visibility.

Currently, two-thirds of men and women in Malta think that men are more ambitious in politics than women.

Robert Abela’s cabinet has 24 members, five of them are women: two ministers and three parliamentary secretaries or just over one-fifth of the cabinet. 

With just one exception, the PL recruits women to positions of power only from among those who are electorally popular.

Ministers Miriam Dalli and Julia Farrugia, and Parliamentary Secretaries Alison Zerafa Civelli and Rebccea Buttigieg (casual election) were elected directly, without corrective mechanisms. Currently, 14 women represent the PL (3 directly elected), and 9 represent the PN in the parliament (1 directly elected).

Among the PL women added by the corrective mechanism, four are backbenchers, one became a parliamentary secretary, and one became a government whip.

The entire PN parliamentary group of 35 members was given some kind of shadow cabinet portfolio, with 9 of 35 shadow ministers being women, just over a quarter.

*All of them except for Claudette Buttigieg are contesting the 2026 election.

Work and economy

For the 2022 elections, the ruling Labour Party (PL) manifesto featured a cover image of two children, with a smiling woman in the background watching them as they leave a playground and step onto a verdant meadow. But the current elections are profoundly shaped by an alarming demographic decline rather than economic output or equal representation.

Men’s average pensions are 40% higher than women’s, making it the largest gender pension gap in the EU. That single number sits downstream of nearly everything else: who takes career breaks, who works part-time, who absorbs the cost of caregiving.

Some of the women who are retired today were still subject to the marriage bar legislation, which was only removed in December 1980 and forbade married women from continuing their jobs in the public sector. 

This policy, imposed by the state, set the tone for decades to come, with research showing that the standard left women feeling guilty for seeking a career after marriage. The state has not fully compensated women for this past discrimination.

“That [affected] a lot of nurses, teachers – quite a lot of women work with the government. Even the data today shows that there are more women working with the government,” says University of Malta academic and Malta Women’s Lobby’s co-founder Prof. Anna Borg. 

She notes that especially women who are separated or divorced later in life are left without financial safety. “You will see that women are, as a category, more at risk of poverty than men overall,” she adds. 

These days, discriminatory laws are gone, but family pressures still hold women back. More than a third of women raising children under 11 years of age spend more than five hours per day on childcare. 

Only 14% of fathers report the same care intensity. Among men, 57% think that women should stay at home if childcare is unavailable, and 47% of women agree.

Although candidates are now promising more generous leave for parents, Prof. Borg points out that Malta effectively lost four years in implementing pro-family policies after choosing to transpose an EU directive on work-life balance in a reduced form in 2022. 

“When the directive was transposed into legislation, women’s organisations, and a lot of other NGOs, were very disappointed because the government did a very bad job in transposing that piece of legislation, and there was no extension of maternity leave. There was just the introduction of some paternity leave, which was positive, but when it came to parental leave, it was a mess, and the payment was extremely low,” she says. “It actually went against the spirit of the directive.”

She notes that the Nationalist Party put forward a private members’ bill in parliament to remedy these problems, but it was voted down.

“If you had to look at the proposals now, there has been a shift, definitely from the Labour Party, and I think it’s coming because there is now everyone is aware that we have a very low fertility rate,” Prof. Borg continues. “The resistance is there from the employers, but I think now the government is faced with the low fertility dilemma”.

Malta has one of the highest employment rates for women in the EU, counted in full-time equivalents. However, women are severely under-represented in the boards of publicly listed companies (17%).

The Equality Bill aimed to change this, but became a casualty of the parliamentary process. Proposed by Helena Dalli during the earlier (2017-2022) legislature, it reached the committee stage and never moved beyond. According to a MaltaToday editorial, this was due to backlash from the church, doctors, pharmacists, and teachers.

This bill would have banned advertising that promotes discrimination, discrimination in financial and insurance services, inquiries about private life and family plans during job interviews and more. 

It would have demanded that public administration ensure, not merely promote, equality mainstreaming in all policy areas. In appointments to public bodies, at least 40% appointees would have had to be women.

Parliamentary secretary Rebecca Buttigieg recently promised better pensions for women and longer parental leave, but did not return to the issue of the Equality Bill.

Consistent with PL’s 2022 electoral promise to support women’s start-ups, the Micro Invest incentive scheme has a higher maximum aid ceiling if an applying business is at least half female-owned – the same extra support that is available to businesses in Gozo and family businesses. But Micro Invest is for “innovation, expansion, and development” of businesses rather than for starting them.

Health

EIGE data shows Maltese men report feeling healthier than Maltese women, and the gap widens sharply among disabled persons.

This election campaign included a women’s health push. The prime minister promised free endometriosis medication, a dedicated women’s clinic and free hormone replacement therapy. Amid the flow of promises, voters are looking back at what happened to the previous batch.

The 2022 proposals that concern women’s health were:

• Free and accessible IVF – both parties: Free IVF was introduced already in the prior legislature, and costs are refunded to eligible parents.
• Free hormone replacement therapy and other medicines for women experiencing menopause – for both parties. Currently, female hormones are compensated only for people diagnosed with Gender Identity & Sex Characteristics Related Conditions, Hypogonadism, Hypopituitarism, Malignant Diseases, Turner Syndrome, Endometriosis/Adenomyosis, and Precocious Puberty.
• Free mental health care for women experiencing post-natal depression – PN. Help with moderate to severe perinatal mental health disorders is provided by the Perinatal Community Mental Health Service, available to mothers and fathers. There is also a screening programme for this.

Free medical aid may be offered to those diagnosed with endometriosis, osteoporosis, and Gender Identity and Sex Characteristics Related Conditions. Prof. Borg, having analysed both parties’ proposals, notes that free contraception had been promised previously but never implemented, and both major parties avoid engaging with the question of abortion.

Safety

Crime in Malta is overall in decline. However, domestic violence and sexual crimes are a particular concern.

Introducing femicide into Maltese law is recognised as a legal breakthrough, although its application in courts remains limited. Given the slow pace of justice, there is not enough case law to review how this change has worked in practice.

Femicide sits at the top of the iceberg of gender-based violence, which remains pervasive.

Official data reveal that 3 out of 16 women murdered in gender-based crimes between 2012 and 2022 had previously sought support from the national social welfare agency ahead of the crime. One in four women in Malta reports experiencing intimate partner violence. Police issued 17,486 domestic violence charges between 2021 and mid-2025 but secured only 933 convictions, roughly one for every nineteen charges.

As the 2026 manifestos roll in, some will repeat the promises of 2022. Voters might reasonably ask the candidates a different question this time: not what they promise, but how they want to go about delivering.

• 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.

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).

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 

In Malta, 99% of political donation sources go undisclosed. The government regularly awards public contracts without a competitive tender process. Ministers’ asset declarations are being pulled from public view. And the data that does exist sits scattered across disparate government portals, with no single point of accountability.

Open Malta exists to change that.

Built by Amphora Media, Open Malta is a free, public platform that brings Malta’s political finance data into one place, so journalists, researchers, and the taxpaying public can see clearly how money moves through the political system.

In its first version, Open Malta covers political donations, direct orders, campaign expenses, social media spending, and asset declarations. 

It will be continuously updated and expanded with new datasets over time. You can support our work over here.

What’s on the platform?

Open Malta builds on the Integrity Watch platform, originally hosted by the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation and developed in collaboration with Transparency International, and refreshes all of that data to the most recent available filings. It also adds two major new datasets.

Direct Orders:

Open Malta provides the first-ever public repository of direct orders, an uncompetitive public procurement mechanism regularly used by the government. 

The current platform carries all direct orders published from 2022 to today. The data from Amphora Media’s full 15-year investigation will be included over the coming weeks.

Search: search by year and by authority. 

Social Media Ads:

A new feature includes political social media advertising by Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. 

Over 9,900 ads run by Partit Laburista (PL), Partit Nazzjonalista (PN), and their respective candidates over the covered period have been collected.

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.

The data was collected from Meta’s archive. Political advertising stopped in October 2025 when Meta banned political advertising across the EU following new EU rules. Google made a similar decision, removing the EU from its Google Ads Transparency Centre and from political ad-serving on YouTube. The dataset will be updated if either platform reverses course.

Search: by party, candidate, year, and election.

Declarations:

MPs’ declared assets, bank and cash deposits, investments, and employment. Sorted by Alphabetical order. 

Political Donations: 

Includes all political party donations submitted to the Electoral Commission from 2016 to 2025. 99% of donation sources are undisclosed. 

You can search by party and by donation band. 

Campaign Expenses:

Per the Electoral Commission, candidate expenses are only published for a two-week window after each election, and the Commission has refused to provide data outside that window. This dataset will be updated following the 2026 general election.

Support our work, be part of our community

Malta’s transparency is shrinking. 

Robert Abela has moved to withhold ministers’ asset declarations from the public after the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life publicly expressed concern about missing declarations.

The vast majority of political donations remain anonymous. And public procurement records are scattered across government datasets, with no one responsible for stitching them together.

Open Malta is our attempt to stitch it together, to give the public a clear, consolidated view of how political money moves in Malta.

We can only do this with your support. Back the project here.

In a national address, Prime Minister Robert Abela called a snap general election for 30th May, citing an “extraordinary international situation”, particularly “energy”.

Russia’s war against Ukraine, the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, and rising tension around the Strait of Hormuz have pushed energy to the top of the international agenda, and, with it, the local one. Oil-based chemicals are in short supply, not just for energy but also for cosmetics, fertilisers, and plastic.

Maltese households have been largely shielded from the price shocks felt elsewhere in Europe, cushioned by Energy Support Measures expected to cost taxpayers roughly €1 billion by the end of 2026.

Beyond that, Malta’s experiences with blackouts – most notably in 2023 – have raised concerns over the long-term suitability of the country’s energy grid, and the investment needed to match supply with population and tourism growth.

The issue has been a key policy area that the PL and PN have tried to exploit, with Minister Miriam Dalli trading barbs with her counterparts over proposals.

Behind the back-and-forth lies an important question: what does Malta’s energy future look like?

Energy Support Measures: The €1 Billion Shield

Before the last general election, energy held its own dedicated ministerial portfolio. 

Since 2022, however, it has been folded into Miriam Dalli’s expansive super-ministry covering Energy, Environment, and Public Cleanliness.

The ministry commands one of the largest budgets in government, with a projected annual expenditure of €767 million in 2026. 

The Ministry is one of the largest spenders on direct orders and has maintained an uncompetitive public procurement system since Robert Abela became Prime Minister in 2020.

The United Equipment Co (UNEC) Ltd, part of Bonnici Group, was the top beneficiary, receiving over €32.2 million in direct orders for power generation, infrastructural works, industrial supplies, equipment procurement and more.

The Ministry’s single largest outlay is the Energy Support Measures – subsidies designed to shield households and businesses from rising global energy prices – projected at €172 million for 2026, following an actual spend of €183 million in 2024. 

Malta introduced the subsidy in 2022 in response to surging international energy prices, triggered by the post-COVID economic rebound and the Russia–Ukraine war.

The mechanism is, in effect, a universal price freeze: the government issues direct grants to state-owned Enemalta (electricity) and Enemed (fuel) so retail prices remain pegged to 2014 levels, a “zero-energy inflation rate”. 

It was accelerated in April 2022, when Malta’s long-term LNG hedging agreement expired. The country shifted from a fixed cost of €9.40 per unit of gas to a price indexed directly to Brent crude. That will expire in August 2026.

“Instead of passing increased energy prices on to consumers, the government decided to freeze retail energy prices by fully compensating the losses of the energy companies,” the IMF said in a country report.

The measures have worked as social policy. According to the Central Bank, they have prevented low-income households from bearing an inflationary burden roughly twice as heavy as that of wealthier households, because their energy spending is higher relative to their income and wealth. GDP in 2022 was around 1.2% higher than it would have been without intervention.

But the price has shown up in the public accounts. The European Commission has identified the measures as a primary driver of Malta’s national deficit, and the country was placed under an Excessive Deficit Procedure in 2024. 

The EU uses this mechanism to ensure that members of the eurozone have sound public finances and one country’s overspending does not destabilise the entire currency area.

Continuing the subsidy, the Central Bank estimates, will add roughly 4% to Malta’s debt-to-GDP ratio. 

The Central Bank has also warned of a less visible cost:: by holding prices artificially low, the subsidy mutes the very market signals that would otherwise push households and businesses to invest in energy efficiency or solar power.

It has called for a “phased and well-communicated exit” between 2025 and 2027, paired with targeted social support and stronger renewable incentives.

“[This] emerges as the most balanced path toward fiscal sustainability, energy efficiency, and environmental alignment with EU goals,” it wrote.

The Energy Transition:

Geography and density are part of the story. Malta has limited land for utility-scale solar, no operational offshore wind, and a grid that largely depends on LNG and an interconnector from Sicily. A second interconnector is on track to be finished by 2026, according to the government. 

Malta’s transition to renewable energy has grown, but at a relatively sluggish pace. Malta’s renewable energy share is the third-lowest in the EU, and trails behind regional peers like Cyprus.

• 2022: 12.9% renewable energy
• 2023: 13.6% renewable energy
• 2024: 15.7% renewable energy
• 2025: 16.2% renewable energy

Malta has committed to hitting only 10% of its renewable energy benchmark, and its 2030 projections fall significantly short of EU requirements. 

On paper, Malta’s climate performance appears strong. In 2023, Malta boasted the third-lowest net greenhouse gas emissions per capita in the European Union.

This success is largely due to the transition from heavy fuel oil to liquified natural gas and the launch of the Malta-Italy electricity interconnector.

The trajectory, though, is harder to assess. Malta recorded the fastest emissions growth in the entire EU between 2023 and 2024. That pace has since moderated, but total emissions continue to climb.  

Energy production is the island’s leading source of pollution. Transport is also a top contributor.
Under the EU’s Effort Sharing Regulation, where most member states have committed to a 40% reduction in emissions by 2030, Malta negotiated a much more modest target of just 19%. The government said it considers that target too ambitious for Malta.

Who is using the energy?

Between 2022 and 2024, the top three energy consumers remained unchanged, with commercial and public services consistently leading, followed by households and the industrial sector. 

Transport, despite being a lower-volume consumer, has seen the most dramatic relative growth, which correlates with the expansion of Malta’s electric car fleet.

What to watch for:

For voters cutting through the rhetoric, the questions that matter are simpler than the manifestos suggest. The €1 billion already spent on the shield was never put to a vote. The next billion will be, directly or otherwise.

Is any party prepared to say what happens to the subsidy? Is anyone pushing for new renewable capacity? Is the second (and the proposed third) Sicily interconnector the answer to resilience? Is the 19% emissions target being defended on its merits, or quietly conceded as one Malta will miss?

The shield has held this long. The election is about who carries it next and what, if anything, is being built behind it.