Two nights of vote-counting have so far seen only one candidate - Simon Busuttil - elected from the European Parliament elections.
Labour's Glenn Bedingfield has now been eliminated, the first of the MEPs not to be re-elected. He was only elected nine months ago, succeeding Joseph Muscat. John Attard Montalto is also expected to face the drop later today.
Most of Bedingfield's votes were inherited by Joseph Cuschieri, who got 1,236, a boost for him as he battles Marlene Mizzi, who only got 479 inherited votes. John Attard Montalto got 1,153, Claudette Abela Baldacchino, 1140 and Louis Grech 784.
Twenty counts have been made so far.
Norman Lowell was eliminated just before. With his elimination, the PL candidates collectively inherited 1,100 votes and the PN 853. AD's Arnold Cassola on his own inherited 578. The other votes were non-transferable.
The vote counting process started with the sorting of votes at 12.45 p.m. on Sunday, but, two days later, the political parties are still not certain whether the outcome in the allocation of seats will be a 3-3 draw or four seats for Labour and two for the PN.
Yesterday evening, PN General Secretary Paul Borg Olivier said the fourth seat appeared to be going to Labour, but PL deputy leader Toni Abela was cautious, although he said it was not impossible. (See separate story below)
Observers said that while the PN had more surplus votes than the PL, Marlene Mizzi was inheriting more votes than the PN's Roberta Metsola Tedesco Triccas.
Ms Mizzi also narrowed the gap on Joseph Cuschieri, who, however, is still expected to take Labour's third seat. The other two seats will go to Louis Grech and Edward Scicluna.
Nationalist candidate Simon Busuttil was declared elected early yesterday morning but no other candidate has been elected since. However Dr Busuttil is expected to be joined by David Casa for the Nationalists.
Tiredness set in among the party agents during the night and a scuffle and some fierce arguments broke out, with the police having had to intervene. No one was injured.