Prime Minister Joseph Muscat initially described the Labour Party’s victory in this weekend’s MEP elections as the biggest in Malta’s history, but now that the official figures have been released by the Electoral Commission, where exactly does it tally up in comparison with past election majorities?

The Labour Party’s samples initially showed that there was a gap of 45,000 votes between the PL and the PN and that estimate was then revised up to 48,000 by the PM and finally 51,600 votes.

Had any of those numbers been proven to be correct, it would have meant the biggest gap – at least in terms of votes – in Malta’s history since obtaining self-government in 1921.

Paul Boffa’s electoral victory in 1947 with a gap of 44,104 votes over the Nationalist Party stood as the record to beat.  The post-independence record in a general election was the PL’s landslide victory in the last general election in 2017, which was won by a majority of 35,280 votes.  This being said, the PL actually won the 2009 MEP elections with a marginally higher margin – 35,431 votes.

However, the Electoral Commission's official figures for the 2019 election reveal that the PL's final estimate of the gap of the two parties was some 9,000 votes too optimistic, with the actual number of votes between the two parties standing at 42,656 votes.

That means that while the gap is a post-independence record, it does not surpass Boffa's 1947 electoral victory, both in terms of percentage and in terms of the sheer number of votes between the two parties.

The Labour Party's samples early on Sunday afternoon had been indicating that the party had garnered 55.1% of the vote, compared to the PN's 36.8%, a gap of 18.3%.  However, once again the official results proved the PL's sampling to be over-optimistic; the PL in actual fact garnered 54.29% of the vote while the PN took 37.90% - a gap of 16.39%.

This also means that the small parties won 7.81% of the vote between them.  Norman Lowell's Imperium Europa was the third most popular party in terms of votes, gaining 8,238 votes (3.17%) followed by the Democratic Party (PD) which obtained 5,276 votes (2.03%).

The caveat to drawing a comparison solely with the numbers of votes is that since 1921, the number of people registered to vote has varied, with this MEP election being the one with the largest electoral register.

In fact taking this into consideration, the Labour Party’s 54.29% majority is not only far below the 59.9% majority that Boffa obtained in 1947, but it is below the percentage tallies that Labour won in the 2009 MEP elections and the 2013 and 2017 general elections.