The Nationalist Party would elect three members to the European parliament, the Labour Party would elect two and Alternattiva Demokratika none, according to a report - Predicting The Future, The Next European Parliament - released yesterday.
The document, drawn up by Simon Hix and Michael Marsh, is based on electoral results in EU states.
Prof. Hix is a lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences while Dr Marsh is a Trinity College lecturer. Both work for Burson-Marsteller consultants.
In Malta, it is forecast the PN would poll 52.9 per cent of the votes (1.1 per cent higher than the party polled in the general election) and elect three MEPs. The MLP, on the other hand, is expected to poll 41.2, or 6.3 per cent lower than it did at the general election.
AD is expected to poll 5.9 per cent, which is 5.2 per cent more than in the last general election.
"Only a large swing would prevent the Nationalist Party winning three seats and the Labour Party winning two," the report says.
Although the two scholars say in their introduction that elections for the European parliament are considered by the parties and the media "less important than general elections", they are frequently referred to as "second-order national elections".
This means that behaviour will be similar to that in general national elections but with some systematic differences. Government party supporters will be less likely to vote at all as they feel comfortable with the party in power, the document notes.
"Among those who vote will be those who switch to the main opposition party to punish the government or to smaller parties such as green and extremist or regionalist parties to highlight issues that concern them," the authors say.
"Large governing parties will lose some support while smaller and protest parties will probably do relatively well. The situation might be slightly different in the 10 new member states because these are the first European elections people will experience".
The report predicts that the European parliament for 2004-2009 will be dominated by the centre-right, with the European People's Party and European Democrats having about 285 of the 732 seats. The European Socialists would be the second largest group with 217 seats. However, the combined forces of socialists, Greens and European United Left would have about 296 seats.
The report says that earlier predictions proved to be 92 per cent accurate, which is more reliable than any polls.
The predictions were based on voting patterns in previous European elections, vote shares in the last national elections, whether the party was in government before the European election and would be in government in June 2004.