Last Updated 7p.m.
Thirty-one hours after the start of the counting of votes in the EP election started, just one candidate has been elected, while the number of counts has risen to six.
The vote-counting is taking place at Naxxar counting centre, and it likely to be a long process. There were 29 counts in the last EP election and the process took well into Tuesday afternoon.
Only one candidate, Alfred Sant, was elected on the first count - early this morning. What followed were several hours spent on transferring his surplus votes, including an interruption caused because of confusion over whether the proportion of transferred votes should be calculated by district or nationally. The commission eventually opted for the latter.
The next candidate to be elected is expected to be Roberta Metsola (PN), but that can only happen late this evening. She only needs 3,600 more votes to make it, but candidates such Kevin Plumpton, Helga Ellul and Jonathan Shaw would have to be eliminated first and their votes transferred.
On the Labour front, new candidate Miriam Dalli is expected to become the second Labour candidate to be elected late tonight.
Party agents are continuing to monitor proceedings, but most of their time was spent shuffling about, drinking coffee and chatting.
THE FOURTH COUNT
The fourth count took place after Anthony Calleja of Alleanza Bidla and Jean Pierre Sammut of Alleanza Liberali were eliminated . They had some a total of 447 votes.
The bulk of Mr Calleja's vote went to his running mate Ivan Grech Mintoff. Of the remaining votes (including Mr Sammut who was sole candidate for Alleanza Liberali), 46 went to AD, 45 went to Imperium Europa, 44 to labour and 37 to the PN. 44 votes were non-transferable.
SOME TENSION OVER A DUBIOUS VOTE, BUT 'TAL-AJKLA' RESTORES CALM
The calm and quiet was shattered at about 5 pm. when a heated argument broke out over a dubious vote during the fifth count, Police intervened to calm down the situation.
And everything was back to normal when Zaren Bonnici made a return to the hall...
MORE CANDIDATES ELIMINATED - PL GAINS MOST FROM TRANSFERS
Antoine Galea (Imperium Europa) and Peter Cordina were eliminated in the following counts. Ivan Grech Mintoff (Alleanza Bidla) was eliminated at 6.15 and his votes (almost 1,005 including second preferences) were distributed to the other candidates. The biggest gainers were Labour candidates with 211 votes. twice that of PN candidates. The rest were distributed among smaller parties or were non-transferable.
Observers said that as a result, the difference between the big parties for the sixth seat was 2,500 For the PN.
The next candidate to be eliminated will by the PN's Kevin Plumpton, whose vote transfers went almost totally to the PN.
Nazzareno Bonnici (Ta l-Ajkla) was eliminated in the 10th count when he had 1,307 votes. 194 of his votes went to the Alternattiva candidates. Norman Lowell got 225.
The PL won 200 votes and the PN 140. The rest of the votes were non-transferable.