Joseph Muscat must at all costs not throw away one of his predecessor's most important legacies. Alfred Sant immediately stamped out the violent element within his party, which had given Labour a bad name all through the 1970s, culminating in the horrendous experiences of violent intimidation of the 1980s.

Yet, a simple news item on Saturday felt like a bombshell exploding next to my ears. Just as used to happen in the 1980s, Labour "tough guys" entered a polling booth to influence voters to vote Labour. This is absolutely unacceptable. We also heard of scuffles at Naxxar. All this at an MEP election! Not only, on Monday I was totally flabbergasted by the attitude verging on the hysterical of the Labour secretary general shouting on TV that the Labour Party (PL) will certainly reduce the electricity tariffs, come what may, on being elected.

Labour Euro MP Louis Grech had to smoothly moderate Mr Micallef and remind him that Labour had won the Euro elections and not the general election, still to be held in four years' time with the consequence that the Nationalists were still in power! What are these people not going to do in four years' time to win the general election!

However, the PL did win this MEP election and rather well. The Nationalist Party (PN) too has many questions to answer of a totally different nature. How come they did not understand the mood of the electorate and of the PL to this extent? We now understand from the Prime Minister himself that at the start of the campaign the polls were indicating a heavier defeat.

Six years ago the PN reached the high point of first preferences, which no other party managed to achieve since. With 146,172 of first-count votes, the PN ensured that Malta enters the EU and Labour's Partnership option be defeated.

Only a year later at the first MEP elections held in 2004, the PN lost just under 50,000 of its votes and elected only two MEPs to Labour's three. The PN's greater worry today however should be that it has not won an election with an absolute majority since the 2003 elections.

Nor do the electoral figures provide any consolation to Labour. The PL's result at 135,917 votes is not only well below this historic level by up to 10,000 votes; it is even below the 141,000 votes obtained at the 2008 election.

The PL's main cause to feel relieved by the result comes not from the electoral figures but from internal political considerations. The MEP victory may have closed the ugly door of internal division and ruthless in-fighting caused by the series of three consecutive defeats at general elections. With its return to electoral competiveness, the sharp knives and hatchets we saw only a few months ago will now be buried at least until after the next general election. It is no minor result for Dr Muscat's strategy to regain power in four years' time.

All this shows that Labour's absolute majority is far from assured at the next general election. The increase in votes from the 2004 MEP elections is directly the result of the collapse in the Alternattiva Demokratika vote. AD lost the grand total of 17,123 votes from the 2004 MEP elections, which is exactly the increase of votes Labour had this time round. It cannot be a coincidence that practically the same amount of votes have moved on to Labour at this MEP election. Had AD maintained its 2004 vote, Labour's result would have been identical to the 2004 Euro elections.

Dr Muscat must be enough of a realist to know that these votes are putting Labour on probation and the PN on notice. These voters had voted Nationalist in 2003, moved away in 2004 with some returning in 2008. They are seriously considering what to do in 2013!

The so called abstentionist party is also alive and well. It has easily grown by 15,000 votes at this election over the 2004 elections. In fact, it grew practically as much the PL increased in votes.

This first analysis on the important MEP vote leads to a clear conclusion, namely that there is a considerable middle ground that is on the move from one party to another depending on the nature of the election and the issues before it. It can easily be said that, over the last two general elections and the two MEP elections held since after the EU referendum, Malta has two different majorities up till now: one for the Europe and one for Malta.

Which of the two will prevail in 2013?

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