Nationalist candidate Edward Demicoli has eliminated from the European Parliament vote-counting process as counting from Saturday's election continues at Naxxar.

Mr Demicoli was eliminated on the 11th count, following Labour candidate Steve Borg, eliminated on the preceding count. 427 of his second preference votes went to David Casa and 264 to Roberta Metsola Triccas. The rest were distributed among the other candidates, including 10 for the PL's Edward Scicluna and 11 for Norman Lowell.

The focus is now on the distribution of votes won by AN leader Josie Muscat, who won 1,426 votes. The second preference given in his votes comay uld have a bearing on which of the main parties wins the sixth seat, with the difference of surplus votes having narrowed, although it is still some 4,000 in the PN's favour.

The worst-performing candidates are eliminated one by one, with their votes distributed to the other surviving candidates on the basis of second preferences.

The PN had started the day optimistic that the seat was likely to go to its candidates - probably Roberta Metsola Tedesco Triccas.

However doubts started creeping when, with the election of Simon Busuttil, 1,000 of his votes were not inherited by the other PN candidates.

All the independent candidates and the candidates of the small parties have been eliminated other than Arnold Cassola and Norman Lowell who won 5,235 and 3,559 first count votes respectively.

Much also depends on the redistribution of votes given to the least successful of the PN and PL candidates.

The focus is on how many of the inherited votes will go to Dr Metsola Tedesco Triccas and to Marlene Mizzi, who would be Labour's best placed candidate for the sixth seat (and Labour's fourth) if Joseph Cuschieri beats her to the third seat which the PL is expected to elect.

So far only PN candidate Simon Busuttil has been elected.