For years, it seemed Gozo’s rural ways would leave it ensconced in the bosom of conservatism forever. But last June, Labour became Gozo’s most popular party in the MEP elections. Had this ephemeral victory, in the traditional Nationalist bedrock, marked the changing political landscape? By JAMES DEBONO
Labour’s support in the general elections between 1971 and 2008 had always hovered between 40% and 46%, its aspirations for a Gozitan victory always undermined by the traditional supremacy of the Nationalist Party on the sister island.
Perhaps with the notable exception of 1987 (when it lost government), Labour always ended up winning the general elections when it secured more than 45% of the Gozitan vote. In fact it registered its worst results in 1981, 1992 and 2003, when it scored 40% while scoring its best results in 1971, 1987 and 1996 when it surpassed the 45% mark.
Moreover Labour never won an election without securing at least 43% of the Gozitan vote.
Labour’s 48% score in last June’s MEP election now represents the party’s best result in Gozo in the past 55 years. But will this be enough to reverse a historical trend that has made Gozo a PN buwark?
Electoral shifts Surely, the PL’s relative majority in last June’s elections represents the party’s best result in Gozo since the 1955 general election, back when they were led by a 39-year-old Dom Mintoff, snatching an absolute majority of Gozitan votes, electing three of five Gozitan MPs.
The result, however, was a fluke. The PL would never win another absolute majority in Gozo.
The party was nearly wiped out from the conservative island at the height of the Church-State dispute, gaining just 6.3% of the Gozitan vote in the 1962 election and 22% in the 1966 election.
But after the Maltese Church lifted its moral sanctions on Labour activists in 1969, the party managed to double its vote scoring 44.8% in 1971.
Support for the PL was to slip again by 5% in the following decade, with the party registering one of its lowest ever Gozitan results in the 1981 election. Surprisingly, led by incumbent Prime Minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, the party scored its best ever general election result in 1987 with 46% of the vote in Gozo – a result which was not to be repeated until Alfred Sant’s victory in 1996.
The increase in support for Labour in Gozo defied the national trend which saw the PN winning the election with a slim absolute majority amid a tense political climate marked by economic decline, violence and institutionalised corruption.
Labour’s surge in Gozo could well be an indication that by 1987 the Labour Party had built strong patronage networks in Gozo.
But after being elected it was the PN which managed to increase its majority in Gozo by five percentage points from 1987 to 1992 thanks to the economic boom. The PN’s increase in Gozo corresponded to the national trend which saw the PN widening its gap with Labour from a sheer 4,000 votes in 1987, to 13,000 nationally.
For the second consecutive time Gozitans rewarded the ruling party, which in turn had created a Gozo ministry, run by veteran MP Anton Tabone.
But following the 1992 scandal of Chambray, and the first signs of economic decline, Labour saw its share of the vote increase by 5% in the 1996 election, which lead to Alfred Sant becoming PM. While Labour increased its share of the vote by four percentage points on a national level, in Gozo it managed to increase its vote by five points.
On the other hand, the premature fall of Alfred Sant’s government saw the party losing three points in Gozo against four points nationally – an indication that the party fared better in Gozo than in the rest of Malta.
The 2003 election saw Labour losing a further two points, dipping to 40.8% - its worst result in Gozo since 1992. This corresponded with a strong affirmation of the Yes vote in the EU referendum.
Yet Nationalist fortunes started to decline again as unemployment started rearing its head again. But despite increased hardships for Gozitan, no remarkable shift to Labour occurred in the 2008 general election in which Labour won 42.9% of the Gozitan vote – an increase of two percentage points over its 2003 tally.
Labour had actually recovered its 1998 level of support but its result was still 3% below the 46% gained in 1996. Labour was to score its most spectacular result in 55 years just a year after its electoral defeat, when it scored 48% against the PN’s 47.5%, thus becoming Gozo’s first party.
Waiting for 2013 A similar feat in 2013 would secure the party a majority of Gozitan MPs for the first time since 1955. But Labour’s success comes in the wake of a drop in turnout from 92% in the March 2008 general election, to just 77% in last June’s MEP elections. This may well be an indication that a number of Nationalist Gozitan voters may well have abstained rather than switched party in these elections.
Moreover Labour’s gains in Gozo were marginally less than in the rest of Malta.
And significantly, with AD scoring 2% and the far-right parties snatching 2% between them, Labour only managed to increase its support by 5.2% despite a Nationalist drop of 7.8%.
With the economic crisis hitting the island hard, Labour may well make further inroads in Gozo with its ‘Labour-lite’ message – read ‘alienate nobody’ – to unite all disgruntled voters.
With the PN having access to the list of voters who did not turn up to vote, the government will also be able to use its power of incumbency to lure back these voters. But this could well contradict sound government policies, like the clampdown on false invalidity pensions and the declared zero tolerance on ODZ development.
Gozitan dynasties Giovanna Debono, daughter of the Nationalist MP Coronato Attard, who graced the benches between 1965 and 1987, emerges as the most successful Gozitan politician with the highest first count vote since 1987. After getting a record 6,591 votes in the 2003 election – the highest number of votes gained by a Nationalist candidate after Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami – she replaced veteran MP Anton Tabone as Gozo’s Minister.
Tabone was also part of a powerful political dynasty. His father Anton Tabone father as also elected in parliament in 1962.
But his son, Anton Jnr., contested the 2004 MEP election without getting elected and then failed to contest the 2008 election.
On Labour’s benches it was Anton Refalo who got the most votes in every election since 1987. The dominance of Refalo and Debono over Gozitan politics is being challenged by two emergent politicians: Labour’s Justyne Caruana and junior minister Chris Said.
In 2008 Giovanna Debono lost 1,158 votes from her 2003 tally while Said increased his tally by 1,250 votes.
But on Labour’s side, both Refalo and Caruana managed to increase their votes, although Caruana increased her votes by 1,373, Refalo only managed a modest 301 vote increase. Signs of changes yet to come, perhaps.
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