Who's financing Malta's politics? Our proposed transparency reforms

Hidden money and behind-the-scenes influence warp political decision-making in Malta, handing disproportionate power to a select few while voters remain in the dark about who is shaping the policies and political priorities that affect their lives. To address this, we’re putting forward a set of reforms aimed at boosting transparency and aligning Malta with its international commitments.

While only Parliament can pass legal changes once it reconvenes after the 30th May general election, the Electoral Commission doesn’t have to wait. By updating some of its existing practices, it can take immediate steps to improve transparency in the upcoming election.

Currently, candidates’ campaign expenses are accessible to the public only for a two-week period, once they have been submitted to the Electoral Commission after an election result is published. To help safeguard the public’s right to transparency, the Electoral Commission can extend the period for public inspection to two months or longer, as this does not require a change in the law.

Similarly, the Electoral Commission is already empowered to enable all parties to have sufficient and equal access to real-time vote counts, which would increase scrutiny of the electoral process. As research by Amphora Media confirms, representatives of Malta’s small parties do not have the same degree of access to real-time vote counts as the larger parties do. This reduces transparency of the electoral process, as the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) noted in its report on the 2022 elections.

To ensure political parties’ funding sources and campaign spending are transparent in the longer term, we are proposing the following legal reforms.

• Provide the Electoral Commission with adequate powers and resources to carry out pro-active and efficient supervision, investigation and enforcement of political finance regulations, including through the imposition of effective punitive fines on political parties for default in the timely submission of financial statements.
• Extend political parties’ obligation to submit annual audited financial accounts to the Electoral Commission to the companies that the respective parties own.
• Amend the General Elections Act to require that election expenses be published online in a timely manner following an election, and remain available for public inspection for a period of at least 2 months.
• Amend Financing of Political Parties Act to require all donations exceeding 100 euros from a single source to be recorded and reported in a digitalised database which remains freely accessible to the general public at all times.
• Give the Electoral Commission a wide mandate, and equip it with adequate powers and resources, to carry out pro-active and efficient election monitoring, investigate reported misconduct in the context of elections, and enforce effective sanctions where necessary.
• Introduce legislative amendments to provide for sufficient, equal access to vote counting by all political parties, and for adequate citizen and international observation of the activities of the Electoral Commission.

Read our full briefing note to Malta’s Electoral Commission about our recommendations aimed at strengthening political finance transparency in Malta. The recommendations are in line with Malta’s international obligations under the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) (as expanded upon by Resolution 11/7 passed at the UNCAC COSP11 2025), as well as by recommendations made to it by the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO), the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).