The votes have been counted, the carcade honking has petered out and the Prime Minister has been sworn in. 

Malta's 2017 general election has come and gone, and as the dust settles on a hectic and acrimonious campaign, we take a look at a pick of three unlikely winners and losers. 

WINNERS

Clint Camilleri, PL 

Qala's mayor came agonisingly close to winning an MEP seat in 2014, losing out to the PN's Therese Comodini Cachia by just 206 votes. 

This time round, there would be no such misery. An architect by profession, Mr Camilleri built up a solid lead ahead of incumbent MP Franco Mercieca from the first round and never relinquished it, winning the Labour Party a third Gozitan seat for the second consecutive election. 

Kristy Debono, PN 

The San Ġwann economist was elected on the first count in the 9th district, becoming only the second female candidate in Nationalist Party history to do so and eclipsing 20 other PN candidates on her district's ballot paper in the process. 

Her party colleague Marthese Portelli and Labour veteran Helena Dalli also found favour with voters, being elected from each of the two districts they contested.

Ms Debono also had another reason to celebrate this time round: her husband Jean-Pierre was also elected to parliament on a PN ticket, ensuring Malta's parliament will now also feature a husband and wife. 

 

Silvio Schembri, PL

Back in 2013, it took Mr Schembri 17 rounds of counting to secure a seat in the 6th district. This time, he rocketed up the charts and was elected on the first count. 

The Luqa economist assiduously courted the hunters' lobby throughout the campaign, and his grassroots courting paid off handsomely: aged just 32 and already in his second term, Mr Schembri was also elected in the 7th district. 

Marlene Farrugia, PD

A bit of a controversial choice. The PD leader was part of the Forza Nazzjonali coalition that fell 40,000 votes short on election day: that alone should qualify her as one of the losers of the 2017 election. 

 

But as a woman who stood up to the government to then quit it, start her own political party and then win a seat in a district, the 10th, that she has little affiliation with, on a purely personal level she has been vindicated. The PD leader will go down in history as the first third party MP to break the PN-PL duopoly in parliament since independence. 

 

LOSERS 

Therese Comodini Cachia, PN 

The MEP was comfortably elected, won the PN 1,523 first count votes and is often name-dropped as one of the PN's rising stars. How could she have ended up on the wrong side of this list?

With the PN still reeling, voters were not impressed when Dr Comodini Cachia announced she would be forfeiting her place in the Maltese parliament to keep her Strasbourg seat instead. 

Dr Comodini Cachia argued that she had her hands full with "rebuilding Malta's reputation abroad," but judging by the reaction to her announcement on Facebook, she has a lot of bridge-building to do to stem the damage. 

Salvu Mallia, PN 

Expecting Mr Mallia, a TV personality with no political experience, to have made it into parliament at the first try would have been asking too much. 

But his total of 212 votes spread over two districts suggests that, despite significant press coverage and anointment as a 'star' PN candidate, voters were turned off by his political antics and that both he and the PN badly miscalculated his electoral appeal. 

Arnold Cassola, AD

The Green Party chairman tried to put a brave face on the party's limp showing at the polls, saying that the Greens had been punished "for being principled" and not joining the PN-PD coalition.

 

But by refusing any form of compromise and shooing away any talk of a PN-AD coalition, Prof. Cassola effectively left AD in no man's land and turned what once looked like a potential third political force into an unattractive proposition for liberal voters with good governance concerns. 

And while the Greens were busy trumpeting their own righteousness, Marlene Farrugia's PD silently crept into parliament, achieving in nine months what AD has failed to do in almost 30 years of trying. 

Chris Cardona & Owen Bonnici, PL 

Just last June, these two Cabinet heavyweights were competing head-to-head to be named the Labour Party's deputy leader. Dr Cardona won that battle, but there was no doubting either man's clout within the PL. 

Both men were easily elected in 2013 and had dramatically raised their public profiles since then, with the Prime Minister handing them meaty ministerial portfolios and Dr Cardona adding 'deputy leader' to his résumé.  

So to see both former ministers come so close to being left on the sidelines by the electorate - both were only elected after more than 20 counts - is a significant blow to their political pride.

The two men can console themselves in the fact that their former cabinet colleagues Edward Zammit Lewis and Manuel Mallia fared even worse, with the two pinning their reelection hopes on casual elections.