Malta's Labour Party (PL) has won the early general election, delivering Prime Minister Robert Abela an unprecedented fourth consecutive term, according to preliminary results released on May 31.
Speaking to the press, Prime Minister Abela said the victory belonged to the people, based on the party's platform. He emphasized that his party had secured a strong mandate and called for maintaining national unity to move the country forward together.
Reporters monitoring the vote count said the PL had won a comfortable majority in parliament, although its share of the vote appeared lower than in 2022, when it garnered 55% of ballots. The election was held on Saturday with a voter turnout of 87.4%, slightly higher than the previous general election.
The secretary general of the opposition Nationalist Party (PN), Charles Bonello, conceded defeat in a statement on national broadcaster TVM, but said his party had narrowed the Labour Party's majority.
Prime Minister Abela, 48, called the snap election a year early, citing the need for a renewed mandate to protect the small, import-dependent island from geopolitical crises. While Malta's economy grew 4% last year, there are concerns that conflict in the Middle East could affect tourism due to rising aviation fuel costs and subsequent inflation.
Abela campaigned on the PL's economic record since 2013, promising stability in turbulent times. His main opponent was Alex Borg, the PN candidate, a 30-year-old lawyer and former Mr Malta winner.
Abela has led Malta since 2020, when his predecessor resigned after a political crisis linked to the 2017 murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who had exposed high-level corruption in the country. According to a 2025 Council of Europe report, Malta still lags significantly in the fight against corruption, but the issue was not a hot topic during the campaign.
Located off the coast of Sicily, Malta is the EU's smallest and most densely populated member state, with about 550,000 inhabitants on 316 square kilometers. The island has a developed economy based mainly on tourism, online gaming and financial services, and boasts the bloc's lowest unemployment rate.
