The Nationalist Party yesterday regained control of the St Paul’s Bay council with a mere nine-vote majority in a photo finish that concluded a nerve-racking 28-hour process.

The triumph was the most contentious among the 34 councils, where elections were held on April 11.

The Labour Party won the councils of Munxar and Floriana, which happened after the independent mayor failed to get re-elected.

In the local elections, Labour won an overall majority of 53.2 per cent but the PN managed to narrow a 17 per cent gap in the 2012 elections by almost half.

We’re halfway up the hill. We are halfway through the marathon and we will see it to the end

The race in St Paul’s Bay – the hometown of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat – was down to the very last count. Although the PN had a slight lead over Labour in terms of first-preference votes, the outcome remained uncertain till the last count when Alternattiva Demokratika’s Simon Galea’s votes proved decisive as to which party had clinched the majority.

It was only at 10.30am when Mr Galea’s surplus votes were being redistributed that the PN took the lead. In the end, a nine-vote difference ensured that PN candidate Daniel Grima was the last to be elected to the council.

Mayor Graziella Galea, who had lost her seat in 2012, could barely stand when the process reached the final nail-biting phase.

The last candidate to be elected was in Mosta before the counting hall was closed until the next general election.