UPDATED - Simon Busuttil became the new leader of the Nationalist Party this evening, winning 93 per cent of the votes of the party's councillors in the second round of the leadership election.

Vote counting took some 40 minutes after polling ending at 8 p.m.

The declaration of the result was greeted with applause and cheers by a crowd of councillors and supporters who gathered at PN headquarters.

Dr Busuttil will deliver a speech shortly.

He was the sole candidate today, with the other candidates having dropped out after the first round.

His result was less than one per cent lower than that achieved by Lawrence Gonzi when he was elected in 2004.

Dr Busuttil won 50.3 per cent of the vote in the first round on Saturday and the other three contenders - Mario de Marco, Francis Zammit Dimech and Raymond Bugeja conceded and declared their support to him. The second round was still necessary since Dr Busuttil needed the support of 66% of the voting councillors to be declared leader.

881 cast their ballot out of 901 party councillors today. There were 863 valid votes of which 802 - 93 per cent were 'yes' for Dr Busuttil.  Six per cent of the councillors (61) voted 'no'. 

The declaration of the result brought down the curtain on Lawrence Gonzi's nine-year leadership of the party which started shortly before Malta joined the European Union.

He has indicated he will resign from Parliament.

Dr Busuttil, a lawyer specialising in EU affairs, formally entered the political fray when he successfully contested the first European Parliament elections to be held in Malta. He remained an MEP until last month when he resigned upon his election to the Maltese parliament.

Dr Busuttil was elected PN deputy leader in November. He is expected to be sworn in as Leader of the Opposition in the coming days.

He is the seventh leader of the PN after Fortunato Mizzi, Ugo Mifsud, Nerik Mizzi, George Borg Olivier, Eddie Fenech Adami and Lawrence Gonzi.