Some Of Alex Borg’s Votes Crossed To Labour. In Gozo, What Does This Mean?

When the new Nationalist leader’s huge Gozo surplus was shared out, a few hundred of his votes went to Labour. It is not a protest, and it is not unusual for the island. Alex Borg won so many first-count votes in Gozo that he cleared the quota for a seat more than two and a half times over. The votes he did not need, his surplus, were passed down to the next candidate on each ballot. Most went to fellow Nationalists. But 226 of them, about 3 per cent, went to Labour. They did not scatter, either. They landed on the two best-known Labour names on the island: 110 to Jo Etienne Abela, and 100 to Anton Refalo (Clint Camilleri had already reached the quota). A few hundred Nationalist votes drifting to Labour might sound like a story. It is not. It is Gozo behaving the way Gozo always has. Gozo crosses party lines more than any district in Malta, and it has done so in every election on record. When votes are transferred there, more of them end up with the other major party than anywhere on the mainland. Election Gozo cross-party rate Mainland cross-party rate 2003 2.05% 0.87% 2008 1.91% 1.10% 2013 1.96% 1.39% 2017 2.47% 1.07% 2022 3.36% 1.92% 2026 2.82% 1.74% In every single election, Gozo’s rate runs between one and a half and two and a half times the mainland’s. And Borg’s 3 per cent is barely above the island’s own 2026 average of 2.82 per cent. His surplus crossed to Labour at almost exactly the rate any Gozo candidate’s would have. A party leader’s surplus is usually the least likely to cross, not the most. Every other party leader’s surplus since 2003 leaked between 0.2 and 1.1 per cent to the other major party. Borg’s 3 per cent stands out only because he is the first leader in the data to win his surplus in Gozo rather than on the mainland. It is not a protest vote either. When Borg’s surplus was distributed, almost none of it exhausted, so nearly every ballot still carried a next preference. And the crossover was concentrated rather than scattered: of the 226 votes, 110 went to Jo Etienne Abela and 100 to Anton Refalo, who has held a Gozo seat since 2008. The one factor specific to Borg is the size of his vote. He took 89 per cent of the island’s Nationalist first-count vote, a wider base than a typical candidate gathers, and wider bases leak a little more at the margins. That accounts for the gap between his 3 per cent and Gozo’s 2026 average of 2.82 per cent. Put in numbers: 3 per cent of Borg’s surplus crossed to Labour, against a Gozo-wide average of 2.82 per cent and a mainland average of 1.74 per cent. The crossover is in line with the district, not out of step with it. •