Joseph Muscat was prophetic when he told voters this was a once-in-a-generation election, as the last time any party won by such a landslide was in 1955 – the day Dom Mintoff became Prime Minister for the first time.

Dr Muscat had promised an earthquake when he was elected leader in June 2008 but probably even when Labour’s massive lead appeared to be growing, he never expected the seismic shock that yesterday’s result foisted on the Maltese political scene.

Yet he kept speaking about Saturday’s election in generational terms, referring specifically to 1971 and 1987, when Dom Mintoff and Eddie Fenech Adami respectively won the popular support that delivered political changes that shaped their premierships.

But the generational election that propelled Mr Mintoff to the top job for the first time had happened in 1955.

Then, Labour won with a crushing 56.7 per cent to PN’s 40.2 per cent. Eight years earlier, in 1947, the had party scored the biggest electoral victory ever with 59.9 per cent and some 44,000 votes over the Nationalist Party.

However, Malta then elected more than two parties to Parliament. In fact, PN in Opposition shared its 19,041 votes (18 per cent) with the Democratic Action Party’s 13 per cent, the Gozo party (five per cent) and the Jones party (3.5 per cent).

But the historical context was different then too.

“You have to keep in mind that in both those elections the Nationalist Party was still in disarray after the war,” historian Dominic Fenech pointed out.

The PN was then associated with the Italian Fascists, particularly after a number of its members were exiled by the British on account of their alleged links to the Italian Government, which was at war with Malta at the time.

Moreover, Malta in 1947 had just been given a self-government Constitution after the British suspended it in 1933.

“It was the most atypical election. I think today’s election result needs to be seen in the context of elections after 1966, when it became a two-party race, more or less,” Prof. Fenech pointed out.

After Independence, there has never been a gap between the parties of this magnitude.

“We are used to majorities of some 5,000 votes but that has changed,” he said.

Seven of the past 11 elections were won with margins below 8,000 votes and where the widest percentage gap was 5.3 per cent in favour of PN in 1992.

That election was the first in which the gap of votes grew to 13,000.

PN never reached that level again, though it came close in 1998 and 2003. “But in these cases we always spoke of landslide in the last 40 years or so,” Prof. Fenech said, arguing that the result changed the dynamic

In this sense, he referred to the parallels that emerge with the landslide victory of Tony Blair’s Labour Party in 1997 after four consecutive victories by the Conservatives.

“If you compare Eddie Fenech Adami to Margaret Thatcher for the purpose of this parallel, Lawrence Gonzi, like John Major, managed to win the election in 1992 by the skin of his teeth. Then came Tony Blair, who won with a massive landslide, which gave Labour multiple terms in government.”

Fellow historian Joe Pirotta similarly argued that Saturday’s election was historic.

“The biggest Labour victory was without doubt that of 1947 and there was that of 1955, which was also a big victory but still to this day, there was still the effect of the war on the Nationalist Party.

“But beyond the analysis, there is no doubt that this was a historic victory, whichever way you look at it,” he said.

Prof. Pirotta put the result down to two main trends – to a “deep sense of disappointment” in the Nationalist Party administration and to a seismic shift in the pattern of voters.

“This has to be delved into very carefully, because I am talking off the cuff here, but it seems to me that one has to understand whether the electorate based its decision on the level of governance and its effect on the country and at the level of the party’s administration,” Prof. Pirotta said.

Had the election been fought only at the level of governance, Prof. Pirotta said, PN would have not lost in this manner. “Perhaps the PN would have lost anyway but not by this margin.”

However, there was a second dynamic at play, he argued, which was that while the Nationalist Party traditionally presented itself as better organised, this time it appeared to be less well prepared than Labour.

“The Nationalist Party neglected its party’s duties with the people in general and I am not speaking strictly of clientelism here. We have seen a reversal. For many years we have seen PN act and Labour react. In the last years we had Labour acting and the Nationalist Party reacting.”

First count votes for PN, Labour, AD...and the gap

mmicallef@timesofmalta.com