“This is a victory of all the people based on the programme we presented for all the people,” Abela told reporters, asserting that the initial results showed his party had secured a “strong mandate” to govern. “Let us maintain the spirit of national unity and move the country forward together,” he added, News.Az reports, citing Reuters.
While official, finalized numbers are still being tallied, journalists tracking the vote count at the Naxxar counting hall confirmed that the Labour Party has won a comfortable parliamentary majority. However, early indicators suggest the margin of victory will be narrower than the landslide in 2022, when the party secured 55% of the total vote.
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Charles Bonello, the general secretary of the opposition Nationalist Party, conceded the election during a broadcast on the state television channel TVM. Despite the loss, Bonello emphasized that his party had successfully managed to slash back Labour’s previously massive majority.
The election, which took place on Saturday, saw a high voter turnout of 87.4%, marking a slight increase from the 2022 general election.
Throughout the campaign trail, the Labour Party leaned heavily on its record of robust economic growth, stability, and its credibility in governance. Conversely, the Nationalist Party campaigned on the premise that the average citizen’s quality of life had deteriorated despite the growing economy in the European Union’s smallest member state.
Abela, who originally took the helm of the Labour Party in 2020 following the resignation of Joseph Muscat, is scheduled to be officially sworn in for his new term on Monday morning.
