Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1540705
8 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 26 OCTOBER 2025 ANALYSIS Labour's quandary: Solidify the core Keith Schembri, one of the architects of Labour's super majorities, advised Robert Abela on Ricky Caruana Podcast, "If the PL solidifies its core, no one can touch it." But does that not contradict Joseph Muscat's inclusive strategy in 2013, asks James Debono ROLL back the clock to 2008, when Jo- seph Muscat was elected Labour Party leader. Back then, the party had no issue with its own core voters, having lost the previous election by a whisker. But to win resoundingly, Muscat spent the next five years assembling a new co- alition where core voters were largely taken for granted. His targets were floaters who yearned for meritocracy and a greener Malta, and social liberals pushed away by the PN's archaic views on LGBTIQ rights and divorce. He even transformed the party into a movement of "moderates and progressives." He reached out by sounding inclusive and promising continuity with PN eco- nomics minus the austerity, while se- cretly and discreetly nurturing ties with big business interests—without making too much noise about it, but enough to convince wider business circles that with Labour in power, it would not just be business as usual but something bet- ter, especially in terms of deregulation in planning. The result of this strategy, which rest- ed on Muscat's ability to persuade wild- ly different and conflicting audiences, was that more than a tenth of PN voters in 2008 migrated to Labour by 2013. Switchers were a heterogeneous group including both idealists and opportun- ists. Today, Labour ignores them at its peril. Abela's turn to the core Contrast this with Robert Abela's present strategy, which increasingly fol- lows Schembri's advice in focusing on reclaiming core voters. This strategy hinges on surveys, show- ing that Labour would be comfortably ahead again if it wins back those who intend to abstain in the next election. But Labour seems to be selectively tar- geting only a segment of these voters; ignoring that segment which migrated to Labour in 2013 but is increasingly disappointed by the government's track record on governance and environmen- tal protection. Instead, the party focuses on die-hard Labourites and Muscat loyalists, while ignoring thousands who took to the streets to protest against Abela's plan- ning reform. Over the past weeks, Abela has tried to galvanise Labour's core vote by rein- tegrating Neville Gafà into a customer care role in government while adopt- ing a more confrontational stance with the Opposition and its new leader, and reaching out to more socially conserva- tive voters and hobbyists such as hunt- ers and feast enthusiasts, even by evok- ing the threat posed by foreigners to the Maltese way of life. This also explains Abela's tolerance for figures like Gafà, who, despite de- fending Muscat, reject liberalism and openly embrace right-wing values. In this light, it is difficult to fathom why Gafà supports Muscat, whose legacy includes cosmopolitanism and civil lib- erties. In fact, Gafà is nothing but a big turn- off for progressive voters. Moreover, Gafà is also turning away capable individuals like Jennifer Tab- one, who resigned from the party's women's branch. This raises the ques- tion: Why risk alienating principled party activists to accommodate some- one who does not even identify with the party's centre-left ethos? Ironically, in this case, rather than solidify the party's core vote, Gafà's shenanigans have only served to alienate a grassroots activist. The risks of a tribal tone Yet there is a problem with this strate- gy. Labour's electorate is now similar to that of the PN in 2004, when the party had to reconcile younger and more sec- ular pro-EU voters, some hailing from Labour families, with its conservative core vote. In this context, the PN's an- ti-divorce stance was the straw that Joseph Muscat gives his autograph to a young admirer during the 2013 election campaign, which built on the idea of a movement of moderates and progressives For while Maltese society at large holds a more nuanced view of Caruana Galizia than her adulators, Gafà's cleansing of flowers from the makeshift memorial opposite the law courts has all the hallmarks of the kind of extremism and pathological fixation that moderates tend to shun