AFP, Naxxar

Malta’s Labour party yesterday won an unprecedented fourth term in a victory for outgoing Prime Minister Robert Abela, who had called a snap election in light of geopolitical uncertainties.

Fireworks were set off across the tiny Mediterranean island and ecstatic Labour supporters dressed in the party’s red chanted “four times!” after officials in the Counting House in Naxxar said preliminary results gave the election to the governing party.

“I’ve voted Labour since I was a little girl, I’m thrilled they’ve made history,” 73-year-old Margaret Camilleri told AFP, as Labour supporters drove past on a truck with speakers blaring the song “We are the Champions”.

Abela, 48, had sent the country to vote a year early, saying the government needed a fresh mandate in order to shield the tiny, import-heavy island from the Middle East crisis.

While Malta’s economy grew 4.0 percent last year, there are concerns the conflict could have an impact on tourism due to spiralling aviation fuel costs and drive up inflation.

Abela campaigned on Labour’s economic record since 2013, pledging stability in a period of uncertainty.

His main rival was Nationalist Party (PN) candidate Alex Borg, a 30-year-old lawyer and former “Mr World Malta” beauty pageant winner, who has urged the Maltese to vote for change.

Abela has led Malta since 2020, when his predecessor quit following a political crisis over the assassination in 2017 of reporter Daphne Caruana Galizia, who exposed corruption at the highest level in the country.