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Malta's head of government remains: Robert Abela in the election campaign (archive image)
Photo: IMAGO/Jonathan Borg / IMAGO/Xinhua
In Malta, Prime Minister Robert Abela's ruling Labor party has declared itself the winner of the general election.
Abela said on Maltese television on Sunday that his party had won the majority, according to preliminary results.
According to the Malta Independent portal, Labor has a lead of at least 30,000 votes out of a total of 350,000 eligible voters.
The official election result was still pending on Sunday afternoon.
The head of the opposition Nationalist Party, Bernard Grech, admitted defeat in a conversation with Abela.
This was confirmed by the Secretary General of the party.
Serious political crisis after the murder of a journalist
Polls had predicted a clear Labor victory.
The corona pandemic and its economic consequences had dominated the election campaign in the island state.
Abela was able to score with the voters with state aid for companies and a comparatively successful vaccination campaign.
However, Labor is also at the center of a corruption scandal uncovered by journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was murdered in October 2017.
The murder of Caruana Galizia triggered a serious political crisis in Malta, in the course of which Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had to resign in January 2020.
Muscat's party colleague Abela then took over the office of prime minister.
Since taking office, Abela has taken steps to strengthen the rule of law and freedom of the press in Malta.
However, anti-corruption activists and the family of murdered journalist Caruana Galizia complain that Abela's reforms do not go far enough.
The economy of the smallest EU country with its around 516,000 inhabitants lives mainly from tourism.
Financial services and online gaming are also important sectors.
Internationally, Malta is regularly criticized as a tax haven.
According to the electoral commission, only around 85 percent of the 355,000 registered voters cast their votes this time.
Traditionally, Malta achieves voter turnout values of more than 90 percent.
che/AFP