Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1435908
8 ANALYSIS maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 8 DECEMBER 2021 WHEN the future looks bleaker than a disastrous past, then things really start looking bad for a political party. And the PN is facing such a moment, with sur- veys raising the prospect of Labour fur- ther widening the gap in the forthcoming election. Last Sunday's MaltaToday survey shows that while 10% of PN voters in the 2017 general election now trust Robert Abela more than Bernard Grech, 'only' 3.2% of these voters say they will be voting PL. This means that if Labour manages to translate trust in Abela into votes, it will be winning by an even larger majority than the 45,000-50,000 vote gap predict- ed in current surveys based on voting in- tentions. Surely reluctant Nationalists – those who say they will not vote and/or that they have no trust in either leader – may well flock back to the party during the campaign, possibly reducing the gap to 2013 and 2017 proportions. To some extent this is already happening: 16% of current PN voters trust neither leader but will still vote PN. But will PN voters eventually regroup to avoid a catastrophic defeat, or will things get worse for PN in a presidential cam- paign where trust in leaders is key to the outcome? The problem for the PN is that it is simply not winning over any substantial amount of voters from the other side to make up for any losses amongst its 2017 voting base. Neither does the survey sug- gest that any Labour voters are in transit towards the PN. While a substantial 7% of 2017 Labour voters say they would not vote, only 1.2% say that they trust Grech more than Abela. Compared to January, the percentage of PL voters in 2017 who trust Grech more than Abela has fallen from 11.2% to just 1.2%. In contrast, the percentage of 2017 PN voters who prefer Abela to Grech has increased from 6.4% to a staggering 10.4%. And while the percentage of PN voters who intend voting Labour has only in- creased from 2% in January to 3.2% now, the percentage of PL voters intending to vote PN has fallen from 6% to just 1.5%. This suggests that Labour's lead is already bigger than it was in 2017 but the situa- tion could become catastrophic for the PN if all those who voted Nationalist in 2017 but who now trust Abela more than Grech end up voting Labour. The PN's nightmare before Christmas A careful reading of last Sunday's survey is the stuff of nightmares for PN strate- gists. The survey suggests that as things stand now, the best prospect for the PN is losing by a slightly larger margin than in 2017. This would still be bad for the PN con- sidering that it starts with a 35,000 vote deficit. Anything short of a reduced gap would be a negative result for the party. But the PN now faces the prospect of an unprecedented wipeout. Such an out- come may well spell the end of the PN, as we know it, possibly exacerbating exist- ing factional and ideological splits to the point of no return. This would probably mean that Labour would entrench itself in power, possibly for the next decade. Much now depends whether 'reluctant' PN voters who distrust both political leaders, will put a peg on their noses and still vote PN. It also depends on whether those 2017 PN voters who now trust Abela are al- ready in transit towards Labour. Another possibility is that some of these voters will abstain or vote for smaller par- ties or independents, who so far fail to leave a mark, but which may gain traction as the election approaches. For one of the greatest obstacles for any late PN recov- ery is the creeping perception that the election is already a lost cause, and there- fore abstaining or voting for another par- ty will have no bearing on the outcome. In this survey less than 1% say they will be voting AD but a large number of ter- tiary educated and young voters are ei- ther undecided or intent on not voting. United Labour vs. fragmented PN The survey suggests that currently the PN's voting base is split in four categories: those who will vote PN and trust Grech (two-thirds of its 2017 voters), those who will vote PN despite trusting neither Grech or Abela (16% of its current vot- ers), those intent on abstaining (7.4% of its 2017 voters) and those who are have crossed the Rubicon and are intent on voting Labour (3.2% of its 2017 voters) or who are in transit towards Labour (10% of its 2017 voters who trust Abela more than Grech). It also includes a small category, which trusts Abela more than Grech but which will still vote PN (3% of current PN voters). In contrast the PL's voting block re- mains rock-solid. While none of the pres- ent PL voters prefer Grech to Abela only 1% of its 2017 prefer Grech while 1.5% would vote PN. This suggests that the chance of the PN making inroads in the PL are minimal. The only problem for La- bour is that 7% of its 2017 voters would abstain. Significantly an equal percentage of 2017 Labour voters distrust both Abela and Grech. This suggests that had the PN been in better shape Labour would be in serious trouble. But as things stand disil- lusioned Labour voters are balanced out by a similar percentage of PN voters in- tent on abstaining. Abela's new political centre Labour not only manages to hold its own fort losing, practically nothing to the other side, but Robert Abela himself still manages to attract a category of former Nationalist voters. In this way he has managed to repli- cate Muscat's successful electoral model, which largely retains the ever-loyal tradi- tional Labour vote, while making strate- gic inroads among different categories of former PN voters, from educated social liberals to rednecks, hunters and building contractors. This reflects the party's repositioning on the political spectrum, which largely turned Labour in to a less conservative and more socially sensitive version of the PN of the 1990s. Abela's party is now anchored in a new political centre, where social liberalism is tempered by nationalist and hawkish stances on migration. Unprecedented levels of corruption failed to dent La- bour's ability to appeal to former PN voters, some of which may have been im- munised by the less blatant but equally corrosive ways of past PN governments, which were also close to the big business interests, which they supported. Still, even on corruption Abela has room for manouvre. For any action against cor- ruption in the Muscat era is bound to further strengthen Labour's appeal, as Labour landslide or wipeout? The PN could be heading for a repeat of the 2013/17 losses or a wipe-out that increases Labour's majority greatly. It all depends on whether undecided, young voters shift one way or the other, says James Debono