General elections were held in

Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...

on 8 March 2008 to elect all

members Member may refer to: * Military jury, referred to as "Members" in military jargon * Element (mathematics), an object that belongs to a mathematical set * In object-oriented programming, a member of a class ** Field (computer science), entries in ...

of the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...

They were held alongside local elections. The elections were contested by the Nationalist Party, the Labour party, six other parties and independents. The governing Nationalist Party led by Lawrence Gonzi won its third consecutive election against the Labour Party led by

Alfred Sant Alfred Sant, (born 28 February 1948) is a Malta, Maltese politician and a novelist. He led the Labour Party (Malta), Labour Party from 1992 to 2008 and served as Prime Minister of Malta between 1996 and 1998 and as Leader of the Opposition from 1 ...

, winning the popular vote by a margin of just 0.55% and with its majority in parliament reduced to just one seat. Voter turnout was 93%.

Background

The House of Representatives was dissolved on 4 February, with elections scheduled for 8 March, the same day that local elections were to be held in 23 of 68 local councils.

Results

Initial exit polls and statistics suggested a very close result. Preliminary results had been expected by Sunday noon but these had to be delayed until a full first count was completed. The Nationalist Party won with 49.33% to Labour's 48.9% a difference of 1,580 votes. Just under 2% of registered voters, 5,266 individuals, failed to collect their voting documents, so fewer than 310,000 people were eligible to vote on 8 March 2008. In total, voter turnout was 93%, the lowest in Malta since

1971 * The year 1971 had three partial solar eclipses (Solar eclipse of February 25, 1971, February 25, Solar eclipse of July 22, 1971, July 22 and Solar eclipse of August 20, 1971, August 20) and two total lunar eclipses (February 1971 lunar eclip ...

. As the Nationalist Party won the popular vote but elected only 31 Members of Parliament to Labour's 34, it was assigned an additional four seats to give the party a parliamentary majority. Two other political parties participated in this election, Democratic Alternative and National Action, but both failed to win any seats. Twelve casual elections were held in April 2008 to fill vacancies arising from candidates elected from two districts declining their second seat. Both the Nationalist Party and Labour each elected six members in this way, leaving the overall parliamentary numbers unchanged.

References

{{Maltese elections General elections in Malta

General election A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from By-election, by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. Gener ...

Background

Results

See also

References