Forty-five minutes into the vote counting process, officials of the two main political parties say the contest is too close to call.

The sorting and counting of votes started at around 12.30 p.m. and officials said the representative samples across all the electoral districts were presenting a mixed picture, although Nationalist Party officials appeared to be more positive than they were earlier in the morning.

Meanwhile many Labour supporters started celebrating victory even before vote counting began, notably in the southern part of Malta but also in Birkirkara, San Gwann and Gozo.