The final countdown tells the story. It happened as expected, only more so. The Nationalist Party (PN) was mercilessly punished by the voters - its voters. While Labour grassroots turned out wholesale, many Nationalists either did not pick or cast their vote or, if they did go to polling booth, voted Labour by an unusual margin.
The portends were there for all to see, as the Prime Minister did and practically said so. His dead pan face told more than that on television in his Broadcasting Authority confrontation with the Labour leader.
I had a personal preview of the coming bloodbath when I dropped in at election-eve drinks organised by friends of Louis Grech for their Labour hero. A lawyer well known for his staunch Nationalist beliefs could hardly contain himself. "I feel as if I am at a Nationalist meeting," he told me. Allowing for a few Labourite exceptions, it was a succinct description of the evening.
On Saturday, the die was cast more solidly with each vote of the low turn-out pushed through the ballot box. So, what happens now? No doubt, the Prime Minister and his team will contemplate the implications of their defeat, starting with today's scheduled Cabinet meeting.
Lawrence Gonzi will reiterate that the PN paid the price for the government doing what it had to do. His apologists will point out, though he will draw no relief from it, that throughout the EU voters in the low turn-out were led by national feelings of discontent with the sitting government and not by an evaluation of who would represent them best in the European Parliament.
If the Prime Minister and those he trusts bother to step back and view the mess with some humility, they might draw another obvious conclusion: the PN campaign was abysmal, based first on rubbishing the Labour candidates and then on offering Euro-pie in the sky in competition with Labour's own domestic pies.
Voters may have suffered from blurred vision brought about by indigestion from too much all-party propaganda stuffed down their throat. But not so much that they did not recognise unreachable pie when offered to them. Few were taken in by the PN rhetoric that its MEPs would create jobs for Malta.
Those who voted Labour not out of shared values and conviction but in protest again the government will now have to wait along with the over-the-moon Labour grassroots to see what happens next. For both sets of voters the proof of the pudding will be in the eating, as always. Will the EP election result make a difference to local politics in a meaningful sense, that is, one judged by practical results?
That is what the Labour and Opposition leader promised. Joseph Muscat did not pitch for when Labour will, on present showing, be in government four years down the road. He spoke of the here and now.
He was not foolish like the Nationalists and did not say that Labour MEPs would create jobs. He concentrated on beating the drum of discontent with the government but closed the campaign with a strong brush painting his MEPs as efficient and relevant to Malta's needs.
Will they actually make a difference through domestic gain? Will they procure more and better results for Malta by their actions in the European Parliament? The measure of that will not be the extent to which MEPs manage to embarrass the government in Brussels on actual or perceived shortcomings. The Labour campaign ensured that the pudding it offered was made of domestic ingredients. The proof of eating that pudding will be its domestic effect.
The EP elections and outcome mark the beginning of another phase in local politics, for both the main parties. How that will impact on the domestic scene and well-being and on the treatment Malta will get from the EU will be seen as the multiple courses of the coming meal unfold. If you can be bothered at all, try not to lose sight of the pre-election menus.