The sound of jubilation

A loud shout of jubilation from within the Labour Party's headquarters at exactly 2.11 p.m. signalled the beginning of the celebrations, which eventually led to a gathering of a couple thousand supporters.

A few minutes later, the Mile End building in Ħamrun was engulfed with people.

Early in the afternoon, bus loads of policemen and women were unloaded nearby and barricaded the street adjacent to the headquarters in three places.

In the meantime, a couple of men carried refrigerators under a small tent erected beside a bar. Minutes later, carcades could be heard making their way down St Joseph High Road. Supporters on the streets hugged and patted each other on the back as they watched the cars whizz by.

Amused tourists on buses photographed the crowds.

At one point, when Labour's general secretary Jason Micallef showed up, people swamped his car, congratulating him. Quite a number of them ignited squibs (which are actually illegal), which did not seem to annoy the police officers on duty.

The crowd was so dense, security men had to push people to make way for Mr Micallef to drive to his office.

The mood was jubilant but light, except for one incident in which a man in a grey vest and green baseball cap suddenly stopped his car in front of the police barriers and brought the carcades to a halt. He alighted, hurled insults at the Prime Minister and hailed hunting before he was told off by the police. He drove off only to stop again another couple of times until the police approached his car. Seeing the commotion, supporters quickly assembled around the car until the police pushed the man back inside and ordered him to drive off.

Most of the action took place a few metres from the main headquarter doors until, that is, a stage started being mounted for a celebration meeting later in the evening.

As a remix of Dépêche Mode's I Just Can't Get Enough was played loudly over the powerful sound system, everyone was drawn in.

The police barriers were pushed aside and the crowd rushed to the stage, waiting for the mass meeting, set to be held two and a half hours later.

One of the oldest people celebrating, 80-year-old Salvu Spiteri, could express nothing but praise for the young leader of the Labour Party saying "there is no one more intelligent than Joseph (Muscat)".

"I have followed him to every meeting despite my age and the speech he gave in Fgura was at par with (Dom) Mintoff".

The scene in front of the nearby Nationalist Party headquarters stood in stark contrast, with just three bored police officers standing guard next to a single barrier and a couple more stacked by a nearby pillar.