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8 NEWS 8 maltatoday | MONDAY • 1 JUNE 2026 ELECTION 2026 MaltaToday poll closest to result MaltaToday poll was closest to the mark in predicting both the percentage and numerical gap between the two major parties THE MaltaToday survey was the closest to the actual result of the general election both in terms of the numerical gap and the per- centage gap between the two ma- jor parties. The MaltaToday, Times of Mal- ta and Vincent Marmara surveys all predicted a comfortable La- bour victory with a reduced ma- jority from the 39,000-vote gap and the 13.4 percentage-point gap Labour achieved in the 2022 election. But while the MaltaToday sur- vey predicted an 18,000-vote gap between the PN and the PL, the Times survey predicted a more substantial 33,600-vote gap, while the Marmara surveys pre- dicted a 30,000-vote gap. The actual result showed La- bour leading the PN by 21,721 votes. Moreover, while the MaltaTo- day survey predicted a 6.4-point lead for Labour, Marmara's sur- vey predicted a 10.5-point gap and the Times survey a 10.6-gap. The real percentage point gap amounted to 7.1 points, the clos- est to MaltaToday's prediction. The MaltaToday survey was al- so closest to the mark in terms of party percentages, predicting La- bour to gain 50.6%, the PN 44.2% and other parties 5.2%. The actual result put the PL at 51.8%, the PN at 44.7% and other parties at 3.5%. This means that the MaltaTo- day survey underestimated La- bour's score by 1.2 points and the PN's score by 0.5 points, while overestimating support for third parties by 1.7 points. The difference between the MaltaToday survey and the actu- al result is well within the survey's margin of error (+/-2.6 pp). The differences between the result and the results of the two other surveys were also within their respective margins of er- ror. The Times survey was closest in predicting the election's turnout. While the MaltaToday sur- vey predicted a lower turnout of 79.1%, the Times survey predict- ed an 89% turnout, which was closer to the official turnout of 87.4%. MaltaToday Times of Malta Vincent Marmara Result PN 50.6 53.5 53.3 51.8 PL 44.2 42.9 42.8 44.7 Others 5.2 3.6 3.9 3.5 Gap (numerical) 18000 33600 30000 21721 Gap % 6.4 10.6 10.5 7.1 Turnout 79.2 89 NA 87.40% THE Labour Party's fourth consecutive victory is a his- toric first for any political party in Malta since the ad- vent of self-government in 1921. The closest to such a feat was the PL itself with three victories in 1971, 1977 and 1981; and the Nationalist Party with three victories in 1998, 2003 and 2008. Nonetheless, in each of these three-victory runs, the last election always proved tricky. In 1981, the PL had won the election on the strength of parliamentary seats de- spite not having a majority of votes. Indeed, that election led to a politically-turbulent period until 1987. In the 1987 elec- tion, one of the memorable photos that stood out was that of the late Prime Minis- ter Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici flashing four fingers, a pre- dicament that never materi- alised because the PN won that election. In 2008, the PN's third con- secutive victory was by a rel- ative majority of votes that gave it a one-seat majority in parliament, leading to a tumultous five years of inter- nal conflict that eventually brought down the govern- ment in 2012. On the contrary, the PL's fourth consecutive victo- ry with a margin of around 18,000 votes is significant and comes on the back of three super majorities. Since 2013, the PL has managed to secure gener- al election victories with a gap upward of 30,000 votes, ushering in an era of super majorities unparalleled in recent political history. The gap in the 2026 elec- tion represents a drastic re- duction from the 39,000-vote super majority the PL ob- tained in the 2022 election. Although the super major- ity era appears to have come to an end, an 18,000-vote gap is still a comfortable majori- ty as much as it is a humbling reduction. Labour candidate Alison Zerafa Civelli flashing the number four sign to emphasise the historic nature of Labour's fourth consecutive victory (Photo: Daniel Tihn/MaltaToday) A victory for the history books KURT SANSONE ksansone@mediatoday.com.mt JAMES DEBONO jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt