Alex Borg has officially been declared as the next leader of the Nationalist Party, beating his compatriot Adrian Delia by a mere 44 votes.

The Nationalist Party's electoral commissioner Mario Callus announced the rest at 4am after a long and drawn-out counting process.

20,795 paid-up party members were eligible to vote in the election and, with a turnout of close to 86%, 17,862 cast their vote.

Alex Borg received 8,905 votes, while Adrian Delia polled in at 8,861 votes - meaning that Borg's margin of victory was just 44 votes.

96 of the votes cast were invalid.

In percentage terms, Borg's victory is the most minimal possible: he polled at 50.1% with Delia at 49.9%.

The official result called time on a nailbiter of election.

The counting process started at 7pm when votes closed, and it became immediately clear that this would be a close-run election as sampling showed there was the slenderest of margins separating the duo.

Initial estimations that the winner would be clear by 11pm proved wide of the mark.

The late hours of the night turned into the early hours of the morning, with the PN's electoral commission saying that the process was taking time because of the close nature of the election.

Borg himself posted on social media at around 1am, claiming victory and thanking people for supporting him to start a new chapter with the PN.

But party officials insisted at the time that the election was still too close to call.

It wasn't until another three hours - which included nearly an hour of the candidates discussing the provisional result - that the official result was announced.

Borg will now take office as the Nationalist Party's leader: he will be the youngest to hold the role at 30 years of age, and also the first Gozitan.

Both Borg and Delia were at the PN’s headquarters following proceedings.  The two, who were said to initially have had an agreement not to run against each other, ran calm campaigns which was characterised by grassroots outreach and promises to bring the PN back to being a winning force.

They embraced and wished each other luck at 7pm outside the party’s headquarters after voting closed – and then entered the PN’s Pieta base knowing that only one would emerge as party leader.

And in a contest which could not have been closer, it was Alex Borg who emerged the victor.

In comments to NET TV meanwhile, outgoing leader Bernard Grech said that he will be staying on as an MP.