Labour’s majority is the strongest electoral victory since independence. In terms of vote difference, it beats the 2017 victory which was its previous record. The Nationalist Party’s best victory in terms of vote difference was in 1992 but was less than a third of the victory achieved in this election.

In terms of vote difference, the only larger majority was in 1947 when Dr Paul Boffa beat a faltering Constitutional Party and a barely reconstituted Nationalist Party.

As regards the vote share difference, this election marked a gap of 13.4%. This beat handsomely the previous post-independence record of 2013. The largest relative Nationalist victory had a margin of just over 5%.

Besides the huge difference scored in the 1947 election, Labour also did very well in 1955, when Dom Mintoff had beat the Nationalist Party by a margin of 19.5%.

While the overall number of votes achieved by the Labour Party was smaller than the previous two elections, it was 11% higher than the best vote tally ever achieved by the Nationalist Party.

Moreover, in two districts, Labour managed to increase the number of first preferences, despite a lower turnout. Labour added nearly 400 votes in the sixth district to mark a new record for this area.

Similarly, Labour achieved its best-ever result in the thirteenth district, increasing votes by nearly 900 votes.

The positive trends in these two districts accounted for nearly 60% of the overall widening of Labour’s absolute majority compared to the previous election.