Malta Labor Party wins historic fourth term amid Middle East crisis

Naxa: Malta’s Labor Party secured an unprecedented victory over outgoing Prime Minister Robert Abela on Sunday, winning a fourth term in office. Abela had called for early elections given the geopolitical uncertainty.Fireworks were set off on the Mediterranean island and jubilant Labor supporters dressed in red chanted “Four times!” as Naxxar officials said preliminary results showed a win for the ruling party.“I have voted for Labor since I was a child and I am very happy that they have made history,” Margaret Camilleri, 73, told AFP as Labor supporters drove past in a truck with the song “We Are the Champions” playing.Abela, 48, brought the country to the vote a year early, saying the government needed new mandates to protect the heavily imported island from crises in the Middle East.Although Malta’s economy grew by 4.0% last year, there are concerns the conflict could have an impact on tourism as jet fuel costs rise and push up inflation.Abella campaigned on Labor’s economic record since 2013, promising stability in uncertain times.“All signs seem to point to the Maltese Labor Party making history, winning four elections in a row,” he said.His main rival is Nationalist Party (PN) candidate Alex Borg, a 30-year-old lawyer and former “Mr World Malta” beauty pageant winner who has urged Maltese to vote for change.Borg acknowledged this on Sunday, saying in remarks posted on social media that he “personally called Robert Abela to congratulate him” on the win.Abella has led Malta since 2020, when his predecessor resigned amid a political crisis triggered by the 2017 assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who exposed corruption at the highest levels of the country.Malta remains far behind in the fight against corruption, according to a 2025 Council of Europe report, but the issue was not a hot topic during the election campaign.population surgeMalta’s economic performance outweighs other concerns.Malta, located off the coast of Sicily, is the smallest and most densely populated country in the European Union, with approximately 550,000 people living in 316 square kilometers (122 square miles) of land.The island has a booming economy, largely based on tourism, online gaming and financial services, and has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the European Union.Despite a low birth rate, the population grew by nearly 30% in a decade, driven largely by foreigners.This has fueled a construction boom that has filled the skyline with cranes, created traffic bottlenecks and put pressure on key services.Heritage groups have decried environmental degradation and threats to the former British colony’s UNESCO World Heritage site.The country has few natural resources and relies on imports for most of its energy, making it vulnerable to external shocks.Labor heavily subsidizes energy bills and has pledged to continue doing so.Malta is also on the frontline of climate change, facing the risk of desertification and drought, but neither major political party has made the issue a priority.Malta has a Green Party, the ADPD, but no third party has held a seat in the Maltese Parliament since before independence in 1964.