2024 European Parliament election in Malta

The 2024 European Parliament election was held in Malta on 8 June 2024 in tandem with local elections.^[1] It was the fifth election to the European Parliament. Malta will elect 6 of the 720 Members of the European Parliament.^[2] EU citizens aged 16 and over were entitled to vote, provided they have registered to do so.^[1] Six different political parties had announced their participation, only 2 of these won seats in the last election those being the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party, with 4 and 2 seats respectively.^[3]

2024 European Parliament election in Malta

← 2019 8 June 2024
All 6 Maltese seats in the European Parliament
Turnout	72.98%
First party Second party   Leader Robert Abela[a] Bernard Grech[a] Party Labour Nationalist Alliance S&D EPP Last election 4 seats; 54.29% 2 seats; 37.24% Seats won 3 3 Seat change 1 1 Popular vote 117,805 109,351 Percentage 45.26% 42.02% Swing 9.03 4.12

Outgoing standing of Maltese seats in the 2019-2024 EU Parliament

Party			European Party		Outgoing delegation
					Seats	Group
	Labour Party	Incumbent MEPs:		PES	4	S&D
		Alfred Sant
		Josianne Cutajar
		Alex Agius Saliba
		Cyrus Engerer
	Nationalist Party	Incumbent MEPs:		EPP	2	EPP
		Roberta Metsola
		David Casa

MEPs not standing for re-election

Departing MEP	Party		EP Group		First elected	Date announced
Josianne Cutajar		Labour		S&D	2019	15 January 2024[4]
Cyrus Engerer		Labour		S&D	2020	27 April 2024[5]
Alfred Sant		Labour		S&D	2014	12 March 2021[6]

Electoral system

MEPs are elected from a nationwide six-seat constituency by single transferable vote.^[7] Candidates who pass the Hagenbach-Bischoff quota in the first round are elected, and any surplus votes transferred to the remaining candidates, who will be elected if this enables them to pass the quota.^[7] The lowest ranked candidates are then eliminated one-by-one with their preferences transferred to other candidates, who are elected as they pass the quotient, until all six seats are filled.

Participating parties/candidates

The below parties and/or independent candidates declared their participation in the upcoming European Parliament elections listed in order of candidate quantity. Times of Malta released a final list after nominations closed.^[8] A total number of 39 candidates contested this election, also a record 13 of such being independents.^[9]

Party			European Party		Quantity	Names	Election Program
		Labour Party		PES	9	Claudette Abela Baldacchino Alex Agius Saliba Clint Azzopardi Flores Daniel Attard Thomas Bajada Jesmond Bonello Steve Ellul Jesmond Marshall Marija Sara Vella Gafà	Election Program
		Nationalist Party		EPP	8[10]	Roberta Metsola (incumbent-outgoing President of the EP) David Casa David Agius Peter Agius Miriana Calleja Testaferrata de Noto Norma Camilleri LouisAnne Pulis Lee Bugeja Bartolo	Election Program
		AD+PD		EGP	4[11][12]	Sandra Gauci Mina Tolu Ralph Cassar Rachelle 'REA' Deguara	Election Program
		Imperium Europa		–	2	Norman Lowell[13] Terrence Portelli	Election Program
		ABBA[14]		ECPM	2	Ivan Grech Mintoff Tania Gauci Fiorini	N/A
		Volt Malta		Volt	1[15][16]	Matthias Iannis Portelli	Election Program
	Independent candidates or non-registered parties		Various or Non-inscrit		13[8][9]	Nazzareno Bonniċi ('tal-Ajkla')[17] Arnold Cassola Edwin Vassallo[18][19][20][21] James Ryder[b][23][24] Simon Mercieca[25][26] Alexander D'Agata[26] Radu Gheorghi[26] Stephen Florian[27] Conrad Borg Manché Noel Apap Malcolm Bezzina George Grixti Adrian Zammit	Some of these candidates released programmes in the form of points throughout their campaigning.

The People's Party did not put forward any candidates.

Campaign

Labour Party

Nationalist Party

AD+PD

Imperium Europa

ABBA

ABBA started its campaign with two events organised in conjunction with the European Christian Political Movement party on 6 April 2024 in a Qawra hotel on 'Reclaiming the power for the member states'. Two pairs of individual speakers addressed the two consecutive events which revolved around 'Sovereignty and Healthcare' and 'Education and Foreign Policy'. Romanian MEP Cristian Terheș and party leader Ivan Grech Mintoff addressed the first meeting, with Valeriu Ghilețchi and lawyer and broadcaster Emmanuel 'Emmy' Bezzina addressed the second meeting.^[28]

Four days before the election, therefore 4th June, Ivan Grech Mintoff resigned his leadership and membership of ABBA party. This comes after an open rift between Grech Mintoff and party secretary general Simon Elmer appeared on Grech Mintoff's protest method, that of egging the floor in debates he attends.^[29] Nevertheless, Grech Mintoff appeared on the ballot as a member and leader of the party.

Volt Malta

Volt's campaign began with the adoption of their joint European election programme November 2023 in Paris, which the party shares with all other parties from Volt Europa.^[30] On 1 February 2024, Volt announced its Vice President Matthias Iannis Portelli as its first (and only) candidate for the European elections.^[31]

Independents

Allegations of voter fraud

This section is an excerpt from 2024 Maltese local elections § Pre-election.[edit]

Maltese courts on 24 May 2024 annulled the ID card residence registration of 99 'ghost voters' who illegally changed such voter registration address to unfinished and uninhabitable flat addresses in Siġġiewi following a successful lawsuit per illegally registered voter by the Nationalist Party in opposition.^[32] The legal battle involved 22 magistrates and took three weeks. This led to housing minister Roderick Galdes being disparagingly titled 'Electoral Fraud Minister' by Opposition-affiliated media NET.^[33] This heavily implicates that the Labour Party stood to benefit from such voter address registration changes with also a win for said Labour Party further consolidated as such.^[34]

Voting cards issued to deceased voters

Ex-ABBA leader Ivan Grech Mintoff alleged in a debate on Maltese national broadcaster Television Malta that a voter who has been dead for two years has been issued a voting card for the 2024 election, stating "F'din l-elezzjoni ħa jerġgħu jivvotaw il-mejtin" (English: In this election, dead people are going to vote again). Newsbook confirmed said deceased voter's identity and document and stated that such cases were not isolated. The Electoral Commission did not answer questions sent by Newsbook on these concerns.^[35]

Similarly in August 2023, a whistleblower made claims that deceased people's identities were used to vote for the Labour Party in the 2022 general election.^[36]

Debates

2024 Maltese European Parliament Election debates
Date	Time	Organizers	P  Present    A  Absent invitee  N  Non-invitee
			Labour	Nationalist	IE	AD+PD	ABBA	Volt	Independents	Refs
21 February	13:00	National Youth Council of Malta	N	P Norma Camilleri LouisAnne Pulis	N	P Ralph Cassar Mina Tolu	N	N	N	[37]
13 March	12:30	National Youth Council of Malta	P Steve Ellul	P Peter Agius	N	P Ralph Cassar	N	N	Arnold Cassola	[38]
22 March	12:00	JEF Malta	P Alex Agius Saliba Steve Ellul	P Peter Agius Norma Camilleri	A Norman Lowell	P Sandra Gauci	P Ivan Grech Mintoff	P Matthias Iannis Portelli	Arnold Cassola	[39]
3 April	13:00	National Youth Council of Malta	P Thomas Bajada	P Lee Bugeja Bartolo	N	P Sandra Gauci	N	P Matthias Iannis Portelli	Arnold Cassola	[40]
12 April	9:05	Malta Chamber of Commerce	P Thomas Bajada	P Norma Camilleri	P Terrence Portelli	N	N	N	N	[41]
	9:55		P Steve Ellul	P David Agius	N	P Ralph Cassar
24 April	8:30			P Peter Agius		N			Arnold Cassola	[42]
2 May	12:30	MUDU	P Daniel Attard Marija Sara Vella Gafà	P Peter Agius Miriana Calleja Testaferrata de Noto	A Norman Lowell OR Terrence Portelli	P[c] Mina Tolu	P[d] Ivan Grech Mintoff		Arnold Cassola James Ryder Conrad Borg Manché[e]	[43]
10 May	16:00	National Youth Council of Malta MaltaDaily	P Daniel Attard Steve Ellul Thomas Bajada	P Norma Camilleri Lee Bugeja Bartolo A Peter Agius	P Terrence Portelli	P Sandra Gauci Mina Tolu Ralph Cassar	P Ivan Grech Mintoff A Tania Gauci Fiorini	P Matthias Iannis Portelli	Arnold Cassola James Ryder	[44]
14 May	17:00	LovinMalta MaltaToday	P Steve Ellul	P Lee Bugeja Bartolo	N	P Ralph Cassar	N	P Matthias Iannis Portelli	Simon Mercieca	[45]
17 May	9:00	Malta Chamber of Commerce	N	N	N	N	A Ivan Grech Mintoff	P Matthias Iannis Portelli	Simon Mercieca Radu Gheorghe	[46]
	10:00						N	N	Malcolm Bezzina James Ryder Alexander D'Agata Stephen Florian
21 May	11:55	Newsbook/RTK	P Steve Ellul	P LouisAnne Pulis	N	N	P Ivan Grech Mintoff	N	Edwin Vassallo	[47]
21 May	17:00	LovinMalta MaltaToday	P Thomas Bajada	P Norma Camilleri	N	P Ralph Cassar	N	P Matthias Iannis Portelli	Arnold Cassola	[48]
22 May	21:00	TVM	N						Nazzareno Bonniċi ('tal-Ajkla') Edwin Vassallo James Michael Muscat Simon Mercieca Alexander D'Agata Radu Gheorghi Stephen Florian Conrad Borg Manché Noel Apap Malcolm Bezzina Adrian Zammit	[49]
28 May	12:00	Newsbook/RTK	P Alex Agius Saliba	P David Agius	N	P Mina Tolu	N	P Matthias Iannis Portelli	James Ryder	[50]

Opinion polls

See also: Opinion polling for the 2024 European Parliament election

It is not uncommon for smaller parties to be grouped together or excluded in polls by Maltese media houses.

	Polling firm	Sample size					ABBA		IND/ Others	Lead	Not voting[f]	Don't know/ Invalid[f]
30 May–04 June 2024	L-Orizzont[g]	1,800	50.9	40.1	3.5	5.5				10.8	31	33 Invalid
22 May–04 June 2024	MaltaToday[h]	1,007	43.3	48.1	1.9	0.6	-	-	6.2	4.8	–
3–10 May 2024	MaltaToday	657	49.4	41.7	8.9					7.7	30.6	–
6–10 May 2024	It-Torċa[i]	1,000	51.5	40.3	5.1	4.1				11.2	31
15–24 April 2024	MaltaToday	656	50.7	44.2	5.1					6.5	29
1–13 April 2024	Esprimi	600	45.4	38.0	3.2	13.4				7.4	–	41.0
7 March - 21 March 2024	MaltaToday	657	52.8	42.6	4.6					10.2	23.4	–
27 Feb – 12 Mar 2024	Esprimi/Times of Malta	600	52.4	39.3	8.3					13.1	33
26 Jan–05 Feb 2024	MaltaToday	647	47.9	41.0	11.1					6.9	37.5
26 Mar 2022	2022 Maltese general election	–	55.1	41.7	n/a	1.6	0.5	0.1	0.4	13.4	24.4	2.9
25 May 2019	2019 European Parliament election in Malta	–	54.3	37.9	3.17	2.7[j]	0.5[k]	n/a	1.2	16.4	27.3	2.6

Results

The Maltese electoral office in Naxxar

Polls opened and closed on 8 June at 7am and 10pm CET respectively. Following the closing of the polls, all ballot boxes were sealed and transported to the vote counting complex in Naxxar. The count was conducted between 9.30am and 10pm when the results were revealed.^[51]

Heavy speculation on whether the supermajority lead that the Labour Party has over the Nationalist Party will prevail or not dominated Maltese media reports.^[52][53] Final reports showed that the Labour Party won the election again, however at the expense of its majority decimated to 8,500 votes.^[54]

Party		Votes	%	+/–	Seats	+/–
	Labour Party	117,805	45.26	–9.03	3	–1
	Nationalist Party	109,351	42.02	+7.12	3	+1
	Arnold Cassola	12,706	4.88	+3.69	0	0
	Imperium Europa	6,816	2.62	–0.55	0	0
	Conrad Borg Manché	5,936	2.28	New	0	New
	AD+PD	3,109	1.19	–1.56	0	0
	ABBA	527	0.20	–0.26	0	0
	Volt Malta	298	0.11	New	0	New
	Other Independents	3,710	1.43	+1.22	0	New
Total		260,258	100.00	–	6	0
Valid votes		260,258	96.34
Invalid/blank votes		9,884	3.66
Total votes		270,142	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		370,184	72.98
Source: Electoral Commission of Malta[55]

By candidate

Count #	Candidate	Party		FPV[l]	FPV%[m]	Outcome
1	Roberta Metsola		Nationalist	87,473	33.61%	Elected through first-preference votes
	Alex Agius Saliba		Labour	63,899	24.55%
3	George Grixti		Independent	20	0.01%	Eliminated with 22 transferred votes
4	Malcolm Bezzina			37	0.01%	Eliminated with 40 transferred votes
5	Radu Gheorghi			50	0.02%	Eliminated with 56 transferred votes
6	Stephen Florian			57	0.02%	Eliminated with 69 transferred votes
7	Alexander D'Agata			84	0.03%	Eliminated with 98 transferred votes
8	Noel Apap			143	0.05%	Eliminated with 154 transferred votes
9	Terrence Portelli		Imperium Europa	147	0.06%	Eliminated with 158 transferred votes
10	Mina Tolu		AD+PD	187	0.07%	Eliminated with 215 transferred votes
11	Ivan Grech Mintoff		ABBA	220	0.08%	Eliminated with 232 transferred votes
12	Simon Mercieca		Independent	232	0.09%	Eliminated with 281 transferred votes
13	Nazzareno Bonniċi			206	0.08%	Eliminated with 289 transferred votes
14	Matthias Iannis Portelli		Volt Malta	298	0.11%	Eliminated with 343 transferred votes
15	Rachelle Deguara		AD+PD	286	0.11%	Eliminated with 369 transferred votes
16	Tania Gauci Fiorini		ABBA	307	0.12%	Eliminated with 468 transferred votes
17	Ralph Cassar		AD+PD	474	0.18%	Eliminated with 715 transferred votes
18	Adrian Zammit		Independent	579	0.22%	Eliminated with 722 transferred votes
19	Jesmond Marshall		Labour	685	0.26%	Eliminated with 873 transferred votes
20	Edwin Vassallo		Independent	717	0.28%	Eliminated with 902 transferred votes
21	Miriana Calleja Testaferrata de Noto		Nationalist	460	0.18%	Eliminated with 1,130 transferred votes
22	Jesmond Bonello		Labour	858	0.33%	Eliminated with 1,264 transferred votes
23	Lee Bugeja Bartolo		Nationalist	677	0.26%	Eliminated with 1,697 transferred votes
24	Louis Anne Pulis			657	0.25%	Eliminated with 1,896 transferred votes
25	James Muscat		Independent	1,585	0.61%	Eliminated with 2,244 transferred votes
26	Sandra Gauci		AD+PD	2,162	0.83%	Eliminated with 3,603 transferred votes
27	Norma Camilleri		Nationalist	1,132	0.43%	Eliminated with 3,964 transferred votes
28	Marija Sara Vella Gafà		Labour	3,442	1.32%	Eliminated with 5,245 transferred votes
29	Conrad Borg Manché		Independent	5,936	2.28%	Eliminated with 7,641 transferred votes
30	Norman Lowell		Imperium Europa	6,669	2.56%	Eliminated with 8,577 transferred votes
31	Clint Azzopardi Flores		Labour	7,482	2.87%	Eliminated with 12,951 transferred votes
32	David Agius		Nationalist	5,851	2.25%	Eliminated with 15,840 transferred votes
33	Steve Ellul		Labour	9,643	3.71%	Eliminated with 17,846 transferred votes
34	Arnold Cassola		Independent	12,706	4.88%	Eliminated with 22,941 transferred votes
35	Peter Agius		Nationalist	9,418	3.62%	Elected with 38,236 transferred votes
	David Casa			3,683	1.42%	Elected with 37,623 transferred votes
37	Daniel Attard		Labour	11,703	4.50%	Elected with 34,764 transferred votes
	Thomas Bajada			10,792	4.15%	Elected with 25,047 transferred votes
	Claudette Abela Baldacchino			9,301	3.57%	Eliminated with 24,493 transferred votes

Notes

1. Not contesting a EP seat
2. Stage name mistakenly reported as proper name by media. The proper name according to the official Electoral Commissioner press release — meaning which will appear on the ballot — is James Michael Muscat.^[22]
3. Attended but left midway.
4. Attended but left after first question.
5. Was not part of the debate but was granted 2 minutes floor time.
6. Excluded from calculation for the party percentages.
7. Sister newspaper of 'It-Torċa', a GWU-owned newspaper, closely aligned to the Labour Party.
8. Survey was candidate based, thus the quantity in 'Other' will definitely include parties listed here and might overflow 100%. Percentages brought about by combining candidate first-preference vote shares. Thus the lead percentage and winning party may not be realistic.
9. Sister newspaper of 'L-Orizzont', a GWU-owned newspaper, closely aligned to the Labour Party.
10. Combined result of Democratic Alternative and Democratic Party vote shares before party merger
11. As Alliance for Change
12. First-preference votes
13. Calculated based on the number of valid votes: 260,258