So there you have it. The power of incumbency did not work. The Nationalist Party’s totally negative campaign failed. The hate spread over the internet rebounded. The strategy mapped out by Labour leader Joseph Muscat, superimposed on disenchantment with the Nationalist government, and loss of credibility of the defeated leaders worked.

Beyond the celebrations lies the hard task of governing.

This is only the end of the beginning. The beginning, Muscat’s five years of leadership structured to change the Labour Party, the electoral strategy to try to rise above the usual political fray, worked.

He has much to celebrate. Not simply in personal terms, which is high enough, but also in his success to mobilise the Labour grassroots, made to forget all their yesterdays, and unite them with voters who, in the past, would not dream of voting Labour.

In retrospect, winning will seem to be the easy task, the completion of the Muscat beginning. Saturday and the resulting massive victory were the end of the beginning.

The demands of governing will now lay into the new Prime Minister with pressure like he has never experienced before.

His first task will be to put together a strong management team. He is lucky to have some older hands who have ministerial experience. They will be invaluable to him, much as the Nationalists derided their continuing presence within the Labour Party. Lacking any of his own, he will need to draw on that experience.

He will also need to appoint other ministers who, though they do not have experience in political administration, have expertise that will be very much required by the new team.

Probably, I shall be disappointed in my desire to see Muscat appoint a lean Cabinet. Rather the opposite will happen, as in the case of previous Prime Ministers on achieving office for the first time. Within a large Cabinet, a core will emerge who will influence their colleagues, at least until they gain enough experience of their own.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat will have a huge point to prove. He will have to turn his election slogan, Malta belongs to all of us, into a governing philosophy. That will not be easy. Labourites who feel they suffered injustices at the hands of the long-administering Nationalist government will want relevant compensation.

Not in terms of money but in terms of deployment and appointments. Some will be justified in their demands. Others not. The new Prime Minister and his team will have to weigh things very carefully. They will have a credibility challenge to meet. But meet it they must.

The new Prime Minister and his team will also have to face the social, financial and economic problems they are inheriting from the incumbents they ousted. They are there and will not be easily solved. The public debt, for instance, will not be brought down in absolute terms. To reduce it in relative terms, the gross domestic product will have to rise at a faster rate.

In the management sphere, that will be Muscat’s greatest challenge: to increase the real rate of economic growth such that the key ratios of the structural deficit and the public debt will come down, yes, but also to generate the additional financial resources required to rebalance the economy, to tackle social ills and to gradually implement the measures promised in the electoral campaign.

It is going to be far from easy. Along the way, the island and its administration will be buffeted by what goes on in the European Union and, particularly, the eurozone. The challenges will be many. The need for calm, wise heads will be great.

The morning after, Muscat and the Labour Party will rightfully celebrate, hopefully without incident. Beyond there will be little time and room for celebrations. Unrelenting hard work will be the order of the day.

For the good of all of us, let’s hope that work will yield the desired results.

Muscat should be congratulated. He will also need our prayers.