While Malta waits with bated breath for the results of this hastily called election, The Malta Independent on Sunday has taken a look at Malta’s general elections since it gained Independence and later became a Republic.

Interestingly, the elections won on the smallest and biggest majorities took place over the past two legislatures. In 2008, the Nationalist Party (PN) won the election by a majority of 1.3 percentage points.

In the 2013 general election, the Labour Party (PL) won by a landslide victory of 35,106 votes and a margin of 9.7 percentage points.

Malta’s smallest Parliament since gaining Independence was formed in 1966, when 28 PL MPs and 22 PN MPs were elected, amounting to 50 MPs in total.

The highest turnout ever registered since Independence was in the 1996 general election, with a turnout of 96.2 per cent. The PL won the general election and Dr Alfred Sant was elected Prime Minister. However, he only lasted two years and former Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami was returned to power.

Since 1996, voter turnout has continued to decline, albeit marginally. Malta has one of the highest voter turnout in the world, and the last time it fell below the 90% mark was in 1966, when 89.7% of constituents turned up to cast their choice.

The longest serving Prime Minister was Dr Eddie Fenech Adami, who led for roughly 20 years, followed by Perit Dom Mintoff who governed for 16 years, and lastly Dr George Borg Olivier who led for some 15 years.

Dr Alfred Sant was the shortest serving Prime Minister, after having served for only two years.

The first time 69 MPs were elected to Parliament, the second largest number in our parliamentary history, was in 1987 when Dr Eddie Fenech Adami’s party won by a majority of 4,785.

The number of seats a party gains in Parliament is proportionate to the votes it is awarded by the electorate. In 2013, PL’s victory of 35,100 votes translated into a nine-seat majority. Later, the PN won a constitutional case in which two seats were added to the PN bench, leading to Malta’s largest ever number of MPs, amounting to 71.