A new parliament is to be elected on Saturday in Malta, the EU’s smallest country.
More than 341,000 residents are eligible to vote and are called upon to cast their ballots at polling stations between 7.00 am and 10.00 pm.
Polls suggest that Prime Minister Robert Abela’s ruling centre-left Labour Party (MLP) is ahead of Alex Borg’s conservative Nationalist Party (PN). Abela is expected to be re-elected.
The count will begin on Sunday morning. One side or the other is likely to declare victory between mid-morning and early afternoon. However, the official result is not expected until later in the day.
At the end of April, in an evening television address, Abela brought forward the parliamentary election – originally scheduled for early next year – to May 30.
The Maltese prime minister cited global geopolitical concerns arising from the war in Iran as the reason for the snap election, and stated that his government needed a new mandate to guide Malta and its citizens through a looming energy crisis.
