The voting system of the Eurovision Song Contest will become more transparent as the judging panel, headed by Italian song-writer and singer Riccardo Cocciante, will publicly announce individual votes for each song on Saturday night.

“The six judges will stand and say who they will be voting for. There will be no conspiracy theories about who voted for whom,” PBS CEO Anton Attard said yesterday.

The decision was aimed at removing any “mysterious elements” from the voting system, said Mr Attard.

The voting declaration by the judges will only apply to the final night tomorrow and will not happen during tonight’s semi-finals during which the 16 finalists will be chosen.

A record number of songs were submitted this year, 141, which were eventually shortlisted to 74. Only 24 songs were chosen for the final phase of the contest and they will all be presented tonight.

Mr Cocciante is no newcomer to Malta. He performed here with Italian legendary singers Gianni Morandi and Claudio Baglioni in 2007 and last year appeared with internationally-acclaimed tenor Joseph Calleja at his concert on the Granaries, in Floriana.

Changes were also made to the public voting system and viewers, for the first time, will be able to vote throughout the show rather than being tied down to a limited time slot.

“The objective is to get the results as quickly as possible so the televoting, which has 33 per cent weighting, will be opened from the start of the event,” Mr Attard said.

The two-night festival will be compared by television personality Valerie Vella and journalist Keith Demicoli.

Last year’s winner, Thea Garret, will perform tonight with Polish singer Marcin Mzorwski. The two became close friends in last year’s Eurovision after they met in Oslo, Norway.

Pop stars Blue, who will represent the UK in this year’s Eurovision, will perform tomorrow along with Melvin and Ivan from Winter Moods.