The politics of Malta takes place within a framework of a parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the president of Malta is the constitutional head of state. Executive authority is vested in the president of Malta, with the general direction and control of the Government of Malta remaining with the prime minister of Malta, who is the head of government and the cabinet. Legislative power is vested in the Parliament of Malta, which consists of the president of Malta and the unicameral House of Representatives of Malta with the speaker as the presiding officer of the legislative body. Judicial power remains with the chief justice and the judiciary of Malta. Since independence, the party electoral system has been dominated by the Christian democratic Nationalist Party and the social democratic Labour Party.
The Nationalist Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in Malta, along with the Labour Party.
The Labour Party, formerly known as the Malta Labour Party, is one of the two major political parties in Malta, along with the Nationalist Party. It sits on the centre-left of the political spectrum.
Local elections were held in 22 localities in Malta on 10 March 2007. The last round of elections held in 2004, on the same day of the national election for the Maltese Members for the European Parliament (MEPs). Approximately 68% of the eligible voters turned up on election day. With the locality of Safi with the highest percentage (86%); and the locality of Swieqi with the lowest percentage (53%). The largest locality was that of Mosta and the smallest one was that of San Lawrenz, Gozo.
Paul Borg Olivier OMC, OSI, is a Maltese politician, former mayor of the Maltese capital city Valletta and Secretary-General of the Nationalist Party.
General elections were held in Malta on Saturday, 3 June 2017 to elect all members of the House of Representatives. The elections were contested by the Labour Party, led by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, the Nationalist Party, led by opposition leader Simon Busuttil, and four other parties, making it the elections with most parties participating since 1962.
The 2014 European Parliament election in Malta elected Malta's delegation to the European Parliament from 2014 to 2019. This was the third such election held in Malta. The elections were held on Saturday, 24 May 2014.
Cyrus Engerer is a former Maltese Member of European Parliament representing the Labour Party. A gay rights activist, he was a spokesperson for the Yes campaign at the 2011 Maltese divorce referendum. In 2021 he was tasked with negotiating the European Parliaments historic resolution on the declaration of the European Union as an LGBTQ Freedom zone, in reaction to the establishment of so called "LGBT-Free zones" in Poland. Engerer later went on to write the European Parliaments resolution which condemned the laws in Hungary which effectively banned "LGBT propaganda" in the vicinity of schools. From 2014 till 2019 Engerer was the Prime Minister's special envoy to the European Union. He was elected as a Member of the European Parliament in November 2020. After he joined the Labour Party the Police of Malta opened an investigation against him, leading to his father's arrest, the opening of a court case against him on spreading pornography and the arrest of his mother on election day. He himself was convicted for spreading revenge porn and received a suspended two years term imprisonment. He is the partner of Partit Laburista's Member of Parliament Randolph De Battista.
The Democratic Party was a centrist to centre-left political party in Malta. It was founded in 2016 after a split from the Labour Party. It elected Malta's first two third party MPs for the first time since the country's Independence. In August 2020 the party announced an agreement to merge with the green Democratic Alternative party to form a new party called AD+PD. The merger was conducted on 17 October 2020.
Marlene Farrugia is a Maltese former Member of Parliament and former leader of the Democratic Party. Previously she had been a member of the Nationalist Party, with whom she contested the General Elections in 1996 and 1998, and the Labour Party, with whom she was elected in 2008 and 2013, before resigning in 2015. She formed the Democratic Party in 2016, but left it in 2019.
Godfrey Farrugia, is a Maltese retired politician, a family doctor, who served as member of the Maltese parliament from 2013 to 2022. He formerly served as the Minister for Health and a Government Whip, of which he resigned from both posts partially for his lack of trust with the Labour Party in Government.
General elections were held in Malta on 26 March 2022 to elect all members of the House of Representatives.
The Alliance for Change is a defunct right-wing Christian-democratic political party in Malta. It is eurosceptic and has expressed socially conservative stances. It was led by Ivan Grech Mintoff, who in 2021 founded ABBA Party. Although the party's social media has not been updated since 2019, as of 2022 Alleanza Bidla remains a registered political party.
Rosianne Cutajar is a Maltese politician who was formerly a member of the Labour Party. She is a member of the Parliament of Malta representing the Sixth District electoral division. Cutajar was Parliamentary Secretary for Civil Rights and Reforms within the Ministry for Justice, Equality and Governance. As a junior minister within Prime Minister Robert Abela’s government, she was responsible for Malta’s equality and civil rights policy and its implementation, together with the country’s legislative reforms across various sectors of government. Cutajar resigned from her position as parliamentary secretary in February 2021 after calls for her resignation due to links with murder suspect Yorgen Fenech.
The 2019 European Parliament election was held in Malta on 25 May 2019. 8 different political parties took part in the election, of which, only 2 won seats in the European Parliament; the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party, with 4 and 2 seats respectively.
The 2024 European Parliament election was held in Malta on 8 June 2024 in tandem with local elections. It was the fifth election to the European Parliament. Malta will elect 6 of the 720 Members of the European Parliament. EU citizens aged 16 and over were entitled to vote, provided they have registered to do so. Six different political parties had announced their participation, only 2 of these won seats in the last election those being the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party, with 4 and 2 seats respectively.
Eve Borg Bonello is a Maltese activist and politician who grew to prominence during the 2019-2020 Maltese protests for her vocal opposition to former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and the corruption scandals that triggered the 2019 Malta political crisis and Muscat's eventual resignation.
ABBA is a far-right and Christian right political party in Malta.
Għarb First, is a localist party located in and operating only in Għarb, Gozo, in the Republic of Malta. It was founded by former PN Mayor David Apap Agius to contest the 2019 Maltese local elections. It gained 2 seats out of the 5 total seats in the Għarb Local Council, and 42.86% of the popular vote, narrowly losing the popular vote to PL by 1.95%, or 19 votes. This makes Għarb l-Ewwel the first third party to gain representation in the local level in both the Republic of Malta at-large and on the island of Gozo. This also makes Agius the first mayor of a village that comes from a third party. This was confirmed after a question on who the Mayorship of the Council was solved after the election.
Local council elections were held in Malta and Gozo on 8 June 2024, in tandem with the European Parliament elections. This is the second time that all local councils of Malta shall be elected simultaneously in a single election, following the 2015 reform abolishing the previous system of half-council elections.
