Counting agents examining the tally of first count votes indicate that current MEP incumbents Roberta Metsola (PN), Alfred Sant and Miriam Dalli (PL) are to keep their seats in the European Parliament.

Three hours after unofficial projections put the Labour Party at 56% of the vote, with the Nationalist Party trailing at 38% and small parties picking up the rest, trends are beginning to form which of the six seats will be taken up by which candidates.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, and indeed the whole of the Labour Party, are strongly anticipating winning back the fourth MEP seat from the PN. In this regard, Alex Agius Saliba has been noted to be performing well while Josianne Cutajar is also being touted as a front-runner.

Cutajar has been especially powered on by a good showing in her native Gozo which, as a district, tentatively seems to have gone to the Labour Party once again.

While Roberta Metsola seems odds on to take a seat for the PN, incumbent MEP David Casa – who has been elected to the European Parliament since 2004 – is also performing well.

With regard to third parties, the initial projections seem to indicate that there are between 22,000 and 24,000 votes split between them.  Agents within the counting hall seemed to indicate that Norman Lowell’s Imperium Ewropa and the Partit Demokratiku are performing best out of the non-main parties. 

Lowell, however, seems to have the edge over PD for now, with especially good showings in localities such as Marsa, Birzebbuga and St. Paul’s Bay - localities which have been experiencing more racial tensions than others in the past months.

Lowell’s voting share has steadily increased in each MEP election – he won 1,603 votes in 2004 (0.65%), 3,637 in 2009 (1.47%), and 6,761 in 2014 (2.68%).

AD’s performance meanwhile was described by one agent as a “disaster”, while independent candidate Arnold Cassola also hasn’t set the polls alight.