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All 6 Maltese seats in the European Parliament | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 2024 European Parliament election will be held in Malta on 8 June 2024 in tandem with local elections. [1] It will be 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 are entitled to vote, provided they have registered to do so. [1] Six different political parties have announced their participation, only 2 of these won seats in the last election these being the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party, with 4 and 2 seats respectively. [3]
Party | European Party | Outgoing delegation | ||||
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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 |
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] |
The below parties and/or independent candidates have declared their participation in the upcoming European Parliament elections in order of candidate quantity. The following source covers a list of candidates as of 14 April 2024. [7] Another source for this list is Electoral Commission press releases, which includes candidacies not reported at all by the media. Times of Malta released a final list after nominations closed. [8] A record total number of 39 candidates shall contest this election, also a record 13 of such being independents. [9]
Party | European Party | Quantity | Names | |||
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Labour Party | PES | 9 |
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Nationalist Party | EPP | 8 [10] |
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AD+PD | EGP | 4 [11] [12] |
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Imperium Europa | – | 2 |
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ABBA [14] | ECPM | 2 |
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Volt Malta | Volt | 1 [15] [16] |
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Independent candidates or non-registered parties | Various or Non-inscrit | 13 [8] [9] |
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The People's Party did not put forward any candidates and will not participate in the election at this stage.
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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]
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. [29] On 1 February 2024, Volt announced its Vice President Matthias Iannis Portelli as its first (and only) candidate for the European elections. [30]
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MEPs are elected from a nationwide six-seat constituency by single transferable vote. [31] 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. [31] 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.
2024 Maltese European Parliament Election debates | ||||||||||
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Date | Time | Organizers | P Present A Absent invitee N Non-invitee | |||||||
Labour | Nationalist | IE | AD+PD | ABBA | Volt | Independents | Refs | |||
22 March | 12:00 | JEF Malta | P Alex Agius Saliba Steve Ellul | P Peter Agius Norma Camilleri | A | P Sandra Gauci | P Ivan Grech Mintoff | P Matthias Iannis Portelli | Arnold Cassola | [32] |
12 April | 9:05 | Malta Chamber of Commerce | P Thomas Bajada | P Norma Camilleri | P Terrence Portelli | N | N | N | N | [33] |
9:55 | P Steve Ellul | P David Agius | N | P Ralph Cassar | ||||||
24 April | 8:30 | P Peter Agius | N | Arnold Cassola | [34] | |||||
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 [lower-alpha 4] | P [lower-alpha 5] Ivan Grech Mintoff | Arnold Cassola James Ryder Conrad Borg Manché [lower-alpha 6] (3 of 13 candidates) | [35] | |
14 May | 17:00 | LovinMalta MaltaToday | P Steve Ellul | P Lee Bugeja Bartolo | N | P Ralph Cassar | N | P Matthias Iannis Portelli | Simon Mercieca | [36] |
21 May | 11:55 | Newsbook/RTK | P Steve Ellul | P LouisAnne Pulis | N | N | P Ivan Grech Mintoff | N | Edwin Vassallo | [37] |
21 May | 17:00 | LovinMalta MaltaToday | P Thomas Bajada | P Norma Camilleri | N | P Ralph Cassar | N | P Matthias Iannis Portelli | Arnold Cassola | [38] |
22 May | 21:00 | TVM | N |
| [39] |
It is not uncommon for smaller parties to be grouped together or excluded in polls by Maltese media houses.
Polling firm | Sample size | PL S&D | EPP | ABBA | IND/ Others | Lead | Not voting [lower-alpha 7] | Don't know/ Invalid [lower-alpha 7] | ||||
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3–10 May 2024 | MaltaToday | 657 | 49.4 | 41.7 | 8.9 | 7.7 | 30.6 | – | ||||
6–10 May 2024 | It-Torċa [lower-alpha 8] | 1000 | 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 [lower-alpha 1] | 0.5 [lower-alpha 2] | n/a | 1.2 | 16.4 | 27.3 | 2.6 |
Alfred Sant, is a Maltese politician and a novelist. He led the Labour Party from 1992 to 2008 and served as Prime Minister of Malta between 1996 and 1998 and as Leader of the Opposition from 1992 to 1996 and from 1998 to 2008. Sant is an established writer and playwright and has published several books.
Simon Busuttil is the Secretary General of the EPP Group in the European Parliament. Formerly, he was Leader of the Opposition. and Leader of the Nationalist Party in Malta and a Member of the European Parliament for Malta.
Arnold Cassola is a Maltese and Italian independent politician, professor, author and editor of various books and academic papers. Cassola is a professor in Comparative Literature at the University of Malta. He has held elective office and political posts in Malta, Italy and at a European level. Cassola served as leader of Democratic Alternative from 2013 until 2017.
Abortion in Malta is illegal except in cases where the life of the pregnant woman is at risk. Until 2023, it was illegal without exception. Malta has the most restrictive laws regarding abortion in Europe with the law in Malta held to be influenced by Roman Catholic Christianity, which formed part of the identity of 82% of the population according to the 2021 census.
Roderick Galdes is a Maltese politician elected in the Maltese Parliament, on behalf of the Labour Party, since 2004. He is currently a member of the Cabinet of Ministers serving as Minister for Social and Affordable Accommodation.
Cyrus Engerer is a Maltese Member of European Parliament representing the Labour Party. A gay rights activist, he was the leading spokesperson for the Yes campaign at the 2011 Maltese divorce referendum. In 2021 he was tasked with negotiating the European Parliaments historic resolution on the declaration of the European Union as an LGBTQ Freedom zone, in reaction to the establishment of so called "LGBT-Free zones" in Poland. Engerer later went on to write the European Parliaments resolution which condemned the laws in Hungary which effectively banned "LGBT propaganda" in the vicinity of schools. From 2014 till 2019 Engerer was the Prime Minister's special envoy to the European Union. He was elected as a Member of the European Parliament in November 2020. After he joined the Labour Party the Police of Malta opened an investigation against him, leading to his father's arrest, the opening of a court case against him on spreading pornography and the arrest of his mother on election day. He himself was convicted for spreading revenge porn and received a suspended two years term imprisonment. He is the partner of Partit Laburista's Member of Parliament Randolph De Battista.
Jason Azzopardi is a Maltese politician and lawyer. He graduated as Doctor of Laws with a master's degree in financial services from the University of Malta in 1996 and that year he started practicing as a private criminal lawyer in the courts of Malta.
The Democratic Party was a centrist to centre-left political party in Malta. It was founded in 2016 after a split from the Labour Party. It elected Malta's first two third party MPs for the first time since the country's Independence. In August 2020 the party announced an agreement to merge with the green Democratic Alternative party to form a new party called AD+PD. The merger was conducted on 17 October 2020.
General elections were held in Malta on 26 March 2022 to elect all members of the House of Representatives.
Rosianne Cutajar is a Maltese politician who was formerly a member of the Labour Party. She is a member of the Parliament of Malta representing the Sixth District electoral division. Cutajar was Parliamentary Secretary for Civil Rights and Reforms within the Ministry for Justice, Equality and Governance. As a junior minister within Prime Minister Robert Abela’s government, she was responsible for Malta’s equality and civil rights policy and its implementation, together with the country’s legislative reforms across various sectors of government. Cutajar resigned from her position as parliamentary secretary in February 2021 after calls for her resignation due to links with murder suspect Yorgen Fenech.
The 2019 European Parliament election was held in Malta on 25 May 2019. 8 different political parties took part in the election, of which, only 2 won seats in the European Parliament; the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party, with 4 and 2 seats respectively.
Alex Agius Saliba is a Maltese politician, Member of the European Parliament since 2019 for the Labour Party.
Volt Malta is a political party in Malta and the Maltese branch of Volt Europa, a Eurofederalist and progressive pan-European political party and movement, which advocates for greater European cooperation across Europe.
The People's Party, also erroneously called by Maltese media as Popular Party, is a conservative political party in Malta. It was founded in July 2020 and is currently headed by Paul Salomone. The party has never obtained any seats in local councils or the Maltese parliament. It does not contest European elections. It is considered right-wing to far-right by certain journalists and portals, however the party protests against the latter characterisation.
Eve Borg Bonello is a Maltese activist and politician who grew to prominence during the 2019-2020 Maltese protests for her vocal opposition to former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and the corruption scandals that triggered the 2019 Malta political crisis and Muscat's eventual resignation.
Randolph De Battista is a Maltese progressive politician and currently serves as a member of the Parliament of Malta and the Chief Executive Officer of the Labour Party. He joined the Parliamentary Group following the 2022 General Elections in Malta and represents the 9th Electoral District, having been chosen by Prime Minister Robert Abela to form part of his team. He is the partner of Member of the European Parliament Cyrus Engerer.
Edwin Vassallo is a Maltese politician and businessman formerly from the Nationalist Party who served as a member of the Parliament of Malta from 1996 to 2022. He was elected to Parliament in the 1996 Maltese general election, and took office on 5 December 1996, and would serve until 20 February 2022 when Parliament dissolved before the 2022 elections. Vassallo was defeated in 2022 elections. Vassallo served as a Parliamentary Secretary in various capacities under the premierships of Eddie Fenech Adami and Lawrence Gonzi from 1998 until 2008. He also served as the mayor of Mosta from 2015 to 2016. Vassallo was also a member of the Parliamentary Petitions Committee in the Thirteenth Legislature from 2017 until 2022.
Alex Borg is a lawyer and Maltese Member of Parliament. In April 2022, he was appointed shadow minister for Gozo.
Mark Camilleri M.Q.R is a Maltese historian, writer, blogger, and publisher. Camilleri served as chairman of the National Book Council from 2013 to 2021. Following this, he became an outspoken critic of the ruling Labour Party and of prime ministers Joseph Muscat and Robert Abela.
Local council elections are to be held in Malta and Gozo on 8 June 2024, in tandem with the European Parliament elections. This shall be the second time that all local councils of Malta are elected simultaneously in a single election, following the 2015 reform abolishing the old system of half-council elections.
Bartolo b'hekk jingħaqad mal-MEPs Roberta Metsola u David Casa, kif ukoll ma' David Agius, Peter Agius, Miriana Calleja Testaferrata de Noto, Norma Camilleri u LouiseAnne Pulis, li kienu approvati bħala kandidati matul l-aħħar xhur.[Bartolo thus joins MEPs Roberta Metsola and David Casa, as well as David Agius, Peter Agius, Miriana Calleja Testaferrata de Noto, Norma Camilleri and LouiseAnne Pulis, who were approved as candidates during the last months.]