Polling stations open in tenth election since Independence

Voting is starting in the tenth general election since Independence, with 309,016 potential voters having 15 hours to submit their choice of candidate to represent them in the next Parliament.

Standing for election are 169 candidates of whom 76 are on the Nationalist Party list, 70 on the Labour Party's, nine are with Alternattiva Demokratika, nine with Azzjoni Nazzjonali and five are independents. Many of them are contesting two districts.

The 565 polling booths which dot Malta and Gozo will remain open uninterruptedly till 10 p.m., after which the ballot boxes will be transferred to the new counting hall at the Naxxar trade fair grounds where vote sorting will start immediately each box arrives. An indication of the result is not expected until about noon tomorrow.

Should only two parties be elected to the House, the government will be determined by the number of first count votes each party wins, but should there be more than two parties - something which has not happened for over 40 years - it will be the parliamentary seats which each party wins which will determine the outcome.

A total of 315,357 voters are actually registered to vote in the Electoral Register but 970 voting documents were withheld for various reasons and 5,266 voting documents were not collected, 1.68 percent of the total. Five years ago the percentage of uncollected voting documents was a mere 0.81 percent.

That leaves 309,016 potential voters spread over 13 districts, which still makes this the biggest general election ever, with some 17,000 more voters than at the last election.

Nearly 5,000 assistant electoral commissioners and other people involved in the running of the elections voted yesterday at the counting hall itself. They were busy overnight sealing the ballot boxes, which have since remained under constant police guard.

Local elections are also being held today in 23 localities.

President Eddie Fenech Adami, who is not an election candidate for the first time since 1966, will be voting at 11.30 a.m. in Birkirkara. It will be his duty to ask the party leader commanding the majority of the members of the House, to form the next government.

The voting today is being held under a patchy sky with a current temperature of 12 celsius which is expected to climb to around 16 .