Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1536259
5 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 11 JUNE 2025 NEWS MaltaToday Survey: As abstention drops, bounces back a sharp drop in the party's sup- port to a historic low of 43.8%. By February 2024, abstention had increased further to 34.2%, while Labour's support stood at 47.9%. This was followed by a marked recovery in March 2024, when abstention fell to 14.4%, and Labour's support rebounded. The trend held ahead of the 2024 MEP and local elections. In the final pre-election poll, abstention among its 2022 voters had risen again to 19%. And while the final MT survey showed Labour leading with 50.8% of the vote, in the ac- tual vote, the party underper- formed: securing only 45.3% in the MEP elections while scor- ing 52.1% in the local council elections held on the same day. Labour's post-election recovery Following the election set- back, surveys in autumn 2024 still showed significant absten- tion within the Labour camp of over 20%. But the trend started to re- verse in the months after the 2025 budget, which included tax cuts aimed at the lower middle class. In November 2024, when La- bour and the PN were polling neck and neck, 25.7% of 2022 Labour voters still intended to abstain. But by April 2025, when Labour hit the 52%-mark, abstention among past Labour voters had already fallen to 11%. By June that figure had dropped sharply to just 6.7%. At the same time, Labour's support surged to 53.3%, giving it a commanding 14-point lead over the PN. Apart from reflecting the feel good factor generated by the budget, the turnaround also coincided with the signing of collective agreements benefit- ing public sector workers, and a broader effort by Prime Min- ister Robert Abela to re-engage Labour's traditional base. In doing so, Abela seems to have adopted different strat- egies aimed at different cate- gories of disillusioned Labour voters, ranging from major and dramatic U-turns at the first signs of sustained opposi- tion—as happened on Manoel Island—to efforts to fine-tune labour migration policies and possibly behind-the-scenes ad- dressing of personal grievanc- es. In short, Labour has learned the timely lesson not to take any of its voters for granted. Abstention among PN voters Meanwhile, abstention among PN voters, which had consistently been lower than among Labour voters in 2023 and 2024, is now higher. In April 2025, it peaked at 19%, and although it fell to 10.5% in June, it still remained above Labour's 6.7%. The latest sur- vey mirrors the situation in the 2022 general election which saw both parties losing ground to abstention, but the PN los- ing more than Labour. This trend suggests that the post-budget decline in absten- tion has largely benefited La- bour. Very few of these return- ing voters have shifted to the PN or third parties. Conversely, any further growth in abstention in the PN camp risks becoming a major factor if disillusionment creeps in and more PN voters become even more apathetic. Bernard Grech's resignation and the impending leadership contest in the PN could break this cycle, reintroducing en- thusiasm even if this comes at the risk of greater divisions. Educational divide The latest MaltaToday survey still shows around one-fifth of the overall electorate intend- ing not to vote. But this is not significantly higher than the 17.3% of voters who did not vote or invalidated the vote in 2022. However, this group is in- creasingly concentrated among the tertiary and post-secondary educated. While only 18.4% of secondary educated voters say they will not vote in a forth- coming election the percent- age rises to over 25% among those with a higher education. Among university gradu- ates—the only educational seg- ment where the PN leads—ab- stention remains high at 27%, and support for third parties is growing. In this group, the PN leads Labour at 39% to 26%, but 7% would vote for third parties and over a quarter intend to abstain. This may include both former PN voters who distrust the current party leadership and former PL voters disgust- ed by corruption and Labour's approach to rule of law issues. Similarly, among post-second- ary voters where Labour leads by a significant margin, 25% still intend to abstain and 7% favour a third party—including 4% who would vote for the cen- trist Momentum party, whose principled stance on the envi- ronment and rule of law issues turns it into a stiff competitor for the PN. While overall voter apathy remains significant, Labour's ability to remobilise its base has proven crucial to its recov- ery. It reinforced a pattern that has now become a consistent feature of MaltaToday's poll- ing—the lower the abstention among Labour's 2022 cohort, the greater its advantage over the PN. Abstention among PL voters PL score Oct-23 29.30% 43.80% Nov-23 26.10% 49% Feb-24 34.20% 47.90% Mar-24 14.40% 52.80% May-24 19.10% 50.80% Sep-24 21.60% 43.80% Nov-24 25.70% 45.30% Feb-25 21.10% 48.20% Apr-25 11% 51.60% Jun-25 6.70% 53.30% Percentage of PL and PN voters in 2022 general election intent on not voting in a forthcoming election