Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1544913
5 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 13 MAY 2026 ANALYSIS ELECTION 2026 Malta needs but won't embrace The PN's cautious repositioning The Nationalist Party has ap- proached the issue more cau- tiously. Unlike in previous elec- toral cycles, officially the PN has largely avoided dramatic and divisive rhetoric on migration or explicit numerical targets for reducing foreign workers. This restraint likely reflects two realities. First, the PN's own economic proposals still assume continued high rates of growth and therefore continued labour demand. Second, the party is ac- tively courting business sectors that remain heavily dependent on foreign workers. Instead of foregrounding mi- gration directly, the PN has framed the issue through eco- nomic restructuring and la- bour-market incentives. For example, it proposes higher stipends for healthcare stu- dents, tax incentives for Maltese professionals returning from abroad, and tax exemptions on overtime and part-time work to encourage locals to fill labour gaps. The underlying message is subtle but clear: Malta should reduce dependence on import- ed labour not through confron- tation, but through productivity, retention of local talent and a more innovation-based econo- my. At the same time, the PN has attempted to exploit Labour's contradictions by remaining silent. When asked Alex Borg condemned racism directed at Rababah but avoided directly confronting the broader an- ti-foreigner discourse surround- ing the controversy. Moreover, party figures such as MEP candidate Peter Agius, in an interview with MaltaToday on Monday, continued to resort to populist rhetoric, referring to "waiting rooms in public hos- pitals being mifqugħa (packed) with foreigners brought here by Labour who benefit from the same access to healthcare as Maltese citizens who have been paying taxes for more than twenty years." The PN has also supported measures that distinguish be- tween long-term residents and newer arrivals, including a pro- posal granting a €5,000 invest- ment fund to children born in Malta to foreign parents only if those parents have lived in Mal- ta for at least five years. This reflects a broader con- sensus emerging between the two major parties: acceptance of foreign labour as economically necessary, combined with in- creasing emphasis on deserving- ness, integration and residency thresholds. The policies that are not being discussed Yet what is perhaps most strik- ing in this election is not what parties are proposing, but what they are avoiding. No major party has proposed a serious reform of Malta's opaque and restrictive citizen- ship through the naturalisation system. Neither is there any discussion on citizenship for children of foreigners who have completed a full school cycle in Malta. No major party talks about voting rights at local level (as is already the case for migrants from the EU) for TCNs who have been here for a number of years. Equally absent are discus- sions about compulsory trade unionisation once championed by labour in a bid to address abuse, stronger regulation of the parallel economy, or structural reforms aimed at integrating a growing migrant underclass in- to Maltese social and political life. Even on a symbolic level throughout the campaign we have not seen any politician shaking hands with immigrant workers. And with the excep- tion of Rababah we have seen little ethnic diversity in the can- didate lists. Progressive Third parties: Blame employers not foreign workers In this vacuum, smaller par- ties have been freer to articulate more coherent — if politically marginal — critiques. Unlike bigger parties Momen- tum has adopted the hardest line towards businesses employ- ing and potentially exploiting foreign workers, proposing ex- plicit restrictions on unskilled foreign labour, salary thresh- olds for work permits, and in- frastructure fees on companies employing high proportions of foreigners. Its argument is es- sentially that employers should bear the social costs generated by mass labour importation. In this way the party does not put the blame on foreigners but on those who are exploiting them. ADPD has been the only par- ty to challenge the underlying economic model itself. Rather than framing migrants as the problem, the Greens argue that Malta's dependence on cheap labour stems from a low-wage, volume-driven economy cen- tred on construction, specula- tion and precarious work. Their answer is a living wage, stronger workers' rights, rent controls and economic diversification away from sectors dependent on constant labour inflows. But the party has still to translate this approach in concrete proposals. A vacuum for the far right It remains to be seen whether the lack of political leadership and clarity on this issue, in a pe- riod of widespread disillusion- ment with politics, could open the way for the far right, which so far has never made any in- roads in national elections. Aħwa Maltin is proposing a discriminatory system where Maltese citizens are given ab- solute priority in hospitals and public services, while brutally ending free healthcare and sub- sidies for non-EU immigrants. The party advocates for "re- al control" on immigration to preserve Maltese identity and traditions, claiming the current demographic shifts are "replac- ing" the native population, thus echoing the 'great replacement theory' of the international far right. Further to the right Imperium Europa will be contesting only two districts but has traditional- ly tapped into the anti-establish- ment vote. But with Norman Lowell not contesting, the party may lack its name recognition. Still, even among Maltese who voice frustration or resentment towards foreigners, there is of- ten an underlying dependence on their presence, with many indirectly benefiting from their services and, at times, from the very structures of labour ex- ploitation that sustain key sec- tors of the economy. An unresolved transformation In this sense, the election debate on foreigners reveals something deeper about Malta's political economy. The central dispute is no longer whether for- eign labour should exist — that question has effectively been settled by economic reality. The real question is what kind of society Malta is becoming as a result of this transformation. So far, neither Labour nor the PN appears fully willing to answer it. On this issue, both major par- ties are simultaneously running with the hare and hunting with the hounds.