Malta elections 2026: candidates, districts, and the battle for voters

Whether your objective is to assess the incumbents’ track record, get an overview of who is offering alternatives, or simply figure out who’s in your district and whose ticket they are running on, we’ve got you covered.

In the upcoming general elections, a total of 163 individual candidates submitted their nominations across Malta’s 13 electoral districts.

Click here for a larger version of this chart, or scroll right for different districts

In terms of sheer number of candidates, the incumbent Labour Party (72) has a slight edge over its nearest competitor, the Nationalist Party (66).

Candidates running for smaller parties and independents total 25 individuals.

ADPD nominated eight candidates, while Momentum is fielding seven. The far-right is represented by seven candidates on Aħwa Maltin‘s ticket and a solo nomination for Imperium Europa leader Eman Cross. Two independent candidates, Noel Apap and Nazzareno Bonnici, will also be throwing their hats in the ring.

Labour Party candidates dominate the ballot sheet in Districts 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, and 8, scoring 16,000 votes in the second district alone in 2022.

Nationalist Party candidates outnumber everyone else in Districts 9 – 12. In 2022, the PN earned 12,000 votes in the tenth district, its longtime stronghold in the North.

In Districts 5, 6, and 13, the major parties fielded an equal number of candidates, adding another layer of pressure on PL and PN candidates keen to flip those battleground districts in their favour.

District 13, which represents Gozo, is particularly noteworthy given that Opposition Leader Alex Borg, a Gozitan, is facing off against three senior Labour ministers contesting on that district – Gozo Minister Clint Camilleri, Agriculture Minister Anton Refalo, and Health Minister Jo Etienne Abela.

In 2022, Camilleri secured close to 6,500 first count votes, followed by Borg with 6,100 and Refalo with 5,000. Abela had secured 1,800 votes on the first count.

What do the numbers suggest?

During the 2022 general elections, the Labour Party secured 55% of the total vote, amounting to 162,000 votes.

The Nationalist Party secured 42% of the vote, a voter base of 123,000.

Though ADPD secured 4,700 votes – more than all the other alternatives on the ballot combined – its total amounted to 1.6%.

While the Labour Party’s 39,000-strong victory in 2022 cemented Prime Minister Robert Abela’s legitimacy in the eyes of his party’s supporters, its much slimmer lead in the local council and MEP elections of 2024 stands in stark contrast.

The key shift in patterns occurred among non-voters, a cohort whose size increased massively between 2022 and 2024.

While the 2022 general elections saw 295,000 valid votes cast, just 259,000 people cast a valid vote in the local council elections, with a slightly better count in the MEP elections (260,000).

The fact that the non-voting cohort grew by around 36,000 people swiftly forced both major parties to step up their efforts to win back disillusioned voters.

In the local council elections, the Labour Party scored 52% of the vote, and the Nationalist Party scored 44%, with the remaining 4% contributing to ADPD leader Sandra Gauci’s first-time election to a local council seat in St Paul’s Bay.

The gap between the major parties stood at 20,000.

As for the MEP elections, the PL scored 45% of the vote – the first time that the incumbent did not manage to secure at least half of all valid votes cast since 2013. The PN, buoyed by the high-profile candidacy of EP President Robert Metsola, secured 42%, with the gap spiralling down to just 9,000 voters.

According to recent surveys, the voter gap between the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party ranges from 7,500 to 20,000.

While this would still translate into an unhindered parliamentary majority for the Labour Party, a gap that is below the 30,000 threshold would massively dent the superiority complex that characterises its style of governance and further embolden parties seeking to dethrone it.