Alex Borg Got More Votes Than The Prime Minister. Gozo Shows Just How Well He Did.

In his first election as Nationalist leader, Alex Borg took more first-count votes than Robert Abela. Across his two districts Borg pulled 21,825, Abela 21,682. A gap of 143 votes. Raw votes, though, are not a like-for-like measure, because Gozo is not an average district. It had around 27,900 valid votes this time, against roughly 24,000 in a typical mainland one. And because it still elects only five MPs, the quota (the number of votes a candidate needs to lock down a seat) was 4,648 in Gozo, against 3,500 to 4,000 on most of the mainland. Bigger pool, higher bar, same five seats. A Gozo candidate banks more raw votes for the exact same result. Here is how the two leaders actually did, district by district: Candidate District First-count votes Quotas Share of district Alex Borg 13 (Gozo) 12,211 2.63 43.8% Alex Borg 12 9,614 2.76 45.9% Robert Abela 2 11,839 2.98 49.6% Robert Abela 5 9,843 2.47 41.2% Borg total 21,825 5.38 Abela total 21,682 5.45 On raw votes, Borg comes out ahead. Adjust for the size of the district, by quota or by share of the vote, and the two are almost level, with Abela a whisker in front. Put another way, an opposition leader fighting his first election in charge matched a sitting prime minister vote for vote. That is no small thing. The Gozo sweep Borg’s Gozo pile was large for two reasons. The district is big, and Gozitan Nationalists put almost all of their vote behind him. The Nationalist vote in Gozo normally splits between two or three heavyweights. In 2008 it was carved up by Giovanna Debono, Chris Said and Frederick Azzopardi. In 2013, Debono and Said took the bulk between them. The leading Nationalist on the island has historically taken around 40 per cent of the party’s Gozo vote. In 2026, with the party leader on the ballot, that changed completely. Borg took 89 per cent of the Nationalist vote in Gozo. The party’s total on the island barely moved from past elections (13,753, against 13,141 in 2008), but where it used to divide between two or three names, this time it concentrated almost entirely on one. The next Nationalist on the island managed 757 votes, where in earlier years the runner-up cleared two to four thousand. That is not a quirk of the count. It is a real measure of how completely Borg carried the island, the strongest result any Gozo candidate has posted in over twenty years. Election Strongest Gozo candidate Quotas Share of district 2003 Giovanna Debono (PN) 1.76 29.3% 2008 Giovanna Debono (PN) 1.42 23.7% 2013 Anton Refalo (PL) 1.26 21.0% 2017 Anton Refalo (PL) 1.13 18.8% 2022 Clint Camilleri (PL) 1.47 24.5% 2026 Alex Borg (PN) 2.63 43.8% For two decades, Gozo’s best names sat between 1.1 and 1.8 quotas. Borg reached 2.63. He pulled the island together the way a party leader pulls together a home base, which is now what he is. How the two men rank among leaders The biggest personal votes in Malta always belong to party leaders, so the fair comparison for Borg and Abela is against other leaders. Here is every leader’s best district since 2003, ranked by raw votes, with the role they fought the election in. Leader Role Election District First-count votes Quotas Joseph Muscat (PL) PM 2017 2 14,674 3.61 Joseph Muscat (PL) Opposition Leader 2013 2 13,968 3.65 Alex Borg (PN) Opposition Leader 2026 13 12,211 2.63 Robert Abela (PL) PM 2026 2 11,839 2.98 Robert Abela (PL) PM 2022 2 11,694 3.07 Eddie Fenech Adami (PN) PM 2003 8 11,537 3.19 Simon Busuttil (PN) Opposition Leader 2017 11 11,266 2.83 Lawrence Gonzi (PN) PM 2008 9 10,901 2.99 Bernard Grech (PN) Opposition Leader 2022 11 9,450 2.49 Alfred Sant (PL) Opposition Leader 2008 1 9,404 2.62 Alfred Sant (PL) Opposition Leader 2003 1 8,590 2.54 Lawrence Gonzi (PN) PM 2013 7 7,260 1.78 By raw votes, Borg’s Gozo haul ranks third among every party leader since 2003. The role column shows why that stands out: nearly all the biggest hauls belong to sitting prime ministers, and Borg is only the second opposition leader to reach the top of the list. Adjust for district size and he settles into the same band as recent prime ministers. For a first election in charge, it is a strong marker to set down. Put simply: Borg topped the national first-count vote, ran a sitting prime minister almost level once district size is accounted for, and posted the best Gozo result in at least twenty years. We would say the best ever, but that is about as far back as the Electoral Commission makes the figures easy to find, so a shout-out to them, and twenty years it is. What all of this means for where the Nationalist Party goes next is the bigger question, and one for another piece. The numbers, at least, give it something to build on. •