Let us start with what shocked the electorate last Sunday morning and led Labour supporters to prematurely celebrate a victory (and also seems to have led to some mayhem at Siggiewi and other places, apart from all the potential of much worse things happening) “just” because predictions on television and in some newspapers misread the significance behind the lower levels of turnout to predict a PN loss and a Labour victory.

In reality, however, if one were to plot the total numbers of those who did not collect their votes and those who did not vote at the general election, one would see there is definitely a rising trend – except when national considerations come to the fore, when the turnout is obviously higher. (See Table 1)

In this election, the total of votes not cast or invalidated reached a record 24,500, but this figure must be compared to 1998’s 16,500, rather than 2003’s 11,800.

It was also said last Sunday that the fact that the turnout was lowest in traditional PN districts was a “sure” sign of a PN defeat, but many failed to grasp that a 94 per cent turnout in the second district could not have been because six per cent of PN voters decided to stay at home and punish their party but rather because there was a small number of voters who could not be pushed to go and vote. The 12th district’s 91 per cent turnout was rather lower, but that did not mean, as Professor Edward Scicluna told One TV and It-Torca, that PN had lost many votes.

One can thus look ahead and see a trend for the number of non-voters increasing with each election. This is also a trend where Malta is slowly, and belatedly, following the European pattern.

In table 2 we weighted the election results of past years with the number of registered voters this year so that we would be comparing like with like.

This shows that the PN lost 13,266 votes compared to 2003 (and not just 2,500 votes) but the MLP lost 1,893, rather than gaining 7,800 votes.

The PN registered its lowest ever showing, just six votes up from 1996 when it lost the election, and even lower than 1976 when it lost to Labour.

But the MLP is still far from its 1996 high, when it “got” 152,000 votes, and actually not so far away from its 1992 and 1998 results, when it lost.

Table 3, also weighted by the registered voters in this election, shows that the PN lead of 15,800 votes in 1992 and 14,300 votes in 1998 has now been brought down to a mere 1,580.

In other words, it is probably the sheer size of the PN itself that stopped it from going any lower.