2024 Maltese local elections

The Labour Party won an absolute majority of 268 local council seats and 48 mayoralties in the 2019 local elections, swiping control of several village councils from the Nationalist Party in a wave of electoral successes for said PL, most significant of all being the flip of Siġġiewi from PN to PL.[3] Since the 2019 election, a firm Labour bloc in the central-south regions of Malta can be found.[4]

Only two independents were elected in two councils in Malta and Gozo. Steven Zammit Lupi was elected to the Żebbuġ local council in Malta,[5] and Nicky Saliba, ex-PN mayor of Żebbuġ in Gozo, was elected as an independent and managed to deadlock the council there, finally resulting in his re-election as mayor.[6] Malta uses the single transferable vote system in all elections.

Several parties have been founded since 2019.

Floriana First (Maltese: Floriana I-Ewwel), and Għarb First (Maltese: Għarb l-Ewwel), both unrelated localist parties, were registered immediately after the election having previously participated as ad hoc groups. The leaders are Nigel Holland and David Apap Agius respectively.

The People's Party (Maltese: Partit Popolari), a right-wing conservative anti-immigration party, was founded sometime around the summer of 2021 by Mr. Paul Salomone, starting the registration process with the Electoral Commission in June.[7] It held its first founding press conference in November 2020.[8] It is considered to have replaced the since-2020 inactive Moviment Patrijotti Maltin even if they are unrelated.

Alleanza Bidla (which still is registered with the Electoral Commission) de-facto reformed as ABBA party by AB leader Ivan Grech Mintoff, nephew of ex-Prime Minister Dominic Mintoff. ABBA party is a right-wing, Christian party which is closely associated by Protestant-Pentecostalist evangelical movement River of Love.[9][10]

The Democratic Alternative, and Marlene Farrugia's Democratic Party, performed abysmally in the previous election, with AD garnering only 1977 first-preference votes (0.77%) around Malta and Gozo and losing its only local council seat in Attard held by party secretary Ralph Cassar, and PD garnering only 555 first-preference votes (0.21%), gaining no seats. Both parties would merge under the new name 'AD+PD' (pronounced and frequently rendered ADPD), retaining Carmel Cacopardo as chairman of the party and Ralph Cassar as secretarv-general.[11][12] AD+PD's current chairwoman is Sandra Gauci since her election on 27 May 2023.[13]

The Electoral Commission of Malta is obliged to update and publish an electoral register in every election. The ECM published said electoral register on 31 March 2023. Voting age is 16 for all elections in Malta. Maltese, and UK-nationals that satisfy the voting age and necessary residency requirements are eligible to vote in these local council elections.[14]

Since and before 2019, there has been much criticism by the Nationalist opposition and civil society groups that Malta and Gozo local council's powers have, under a Labour Party administration, been watered down and concentrated more on Castille.[15] A year before, the National Audit Office expressed its anger at an "alarming situation" where fifteen local councils and one regional council failed to submit their audited financial statements in November 2022.[16]

On 8 August 2023, Ministry for Local Government launched a "national strategic vision" for Local Councils and government in Malta and Gozo. This would aim to strengthen the role of Police and the environment locally.[17]

On 11 October 2023, the Minister for Local Government Owen Bonniċi and Parliamentary Secretary Alison Żerafa Civelli unveiled a legislative process through a bill amending the Local Government Act permitting 16-17 year olds to be elected as mayors and deputy mayors of the Maltese local councils.[18] It was approved by Cabinet on the same day.[19] This was however not approved by an overwhelming majority of the Maltese population, and was very much derided on social media. A Times of Malta poll found that 97% of responders did not agree with the draft legislation.[20] The idea was not really conceived by PL, as PN had proposed the exact same in a December manifesto on local government published by the party in December 2022.[21][22]

If these plans are put to effect, Malta would be the first country in the EU (and the European continent) to lower the minimum age required to serve as mayor.[23]

A de-facto sanitary crisis in various localities around Malta and Gozo has been brought to the attention of various media press in the last year, with mayors such as Swieqi's Noel Muscat and Sliema's John Pillow decrying an "uncontrollable" and "unbearable" garbage problem with the latter even resorting to naming and shaming.[24][25] The Nationalist Party had also stated in a press conference that "councils are being faced by “immense pressure” without having any control over the situation, which is in turn affecting the country’s reputation". Nationalist MP Eve Borg Bonello posted a Facebook video calling Energy Minister Miriam Dalli a "pseudo green warrior who recently faced a national embarrassment".[26]

On 4th September 2023, Labour Party television channel ONE TV claimed through an "exclusive report" to have revealed a private recording of a voice message sent by Pillow to a Sliema resident in the advent of a Nationalist Party press conference one the same subject, where according to ONE, Pillow claimed he left garbage uncollected on purpose to show journalists the state of his town to the media in the press conference.[27] Pillow rebutted the report as maniputive, calling it out as a "henious lie" in a Facebook post, playing in public the concerned voice message recording in full.[28][29]

Several mayors, local councils, and even minority opposition within councils without the support of said council have protested and objected several development projects around Malta and Gozo.

The most popular and recent successful blocking of such development is in Gżira where Labour Party Mayor Conrad Borg Manché and the Gżira Local Council won an appeal case against the Lands Authority which granted back to the Council jurisdiction and control of the Yacht Marina Garden, as opposed to allowing the Authority to proceed with plans to relocation a petrol station to the garden.[30] On 8 October 2023, Borg Manché would resign from the Labour Party, citing according to him the party's departure from socialist principles. “The party is no longer a socialist party that fights for workers. That is why I had joined the party in the first place, and so this resignation is only natural.", he said.[31][32][33][34]

In March 2023, a landmark ruling in Santa Luċija, Malta by Chief Judge Mark Chetcuti cancelled a Environment and Review Tribunal permit that proposed a 5-storey development which would have ruined the uniformity of a street containing only 2-storey houses. It is good to note that the Planning Authority had not approved this development proposal, and was only approved by the EPRT after an appeal lodged by the applicant. This appeal was again contested by Nationalist minority leader in the S. Luċija Local Council, Liam Sciberras and resident Michael Pule. In this case, the minority leader criticised Labour Party Mayor Charmaine St John and Vice-Mayor Frederick Cutajar who according to Sciberras, defended the developer instead of the resident objectors.[35] The Local Council, at first however, did object to the project.[36] The People's Party, in a statement also expressed its solidarity with both the residents and the local council of Santa Luċija.[37]

Another similar case is a 20-year battle against a Ħondoq ir-Rummien "megaproject" ended also successfully for the local populace and Qala mayor Paul Buttiġieġ. "The proposed project, with a total site area of over 103,000 square metres, was divided into several zones. It included a 110-bedroom hotel set on nine floors, 25 self-catering villas, 60 self-catering apartments, 200 multi-ownership residential units consisting of apartments, maisonettes and bungalows, over 1,200 underground car-parking spaces, a chapel, administration offices, shops and restaurants."[38]

In the Nigret area of Żurrieq, farmland is slated to become a residential area despite several objections.[39] Activism in this village has been particularly active, with the formation of the Għaqda Residenti taż-Żurrieq (English: Żurrieq Residents Group) as a local pressure group protesting and raising funds to challenge this development.[40] They eventually managed to raise enough money in August 2022 to take the Planning Authority to the courts over these plans, after the PA executive council also voted unanimously to allow procedure anyway of the developments.[41]

The Rabat (Malta) Local Council also objected to the construction of a farmhouse in the 'Għeriexem Valley' area. The primary reasons for this objection are that Wied Għeriexem is a buffer zone between Rabat and Mdina and that a permitted precedent might permit more developments in that area and that the finished building will not be able to be used for residential purposes, something that the law requires it to prove.[42][43] The People's Party also released a statement supporting the local council and the Rabat residents, however also proposing that 'outside development zones' or ODZs be granted constitutional protection, meaning that construction in these areas would be constrained by a 2/3 vote in Parliament or in a referendum.[44]