[WATCH] Abstention election sees protest vote double

There were almost 60,000 people in Saturday’s election who either abstained or spoiled their vote, almost double the number from five years ago.

By the time polling stations closed at 10pm on Saturday, 51,500 people chose not to vote, leading to a historically low turnout of 85.5%.

These included those who did not even bother to pick up their voting document.

However, there were an additional 8,227 who went to the polling station but decided to spoil their ballot. This figure is twice as much as five years ago.

Although by European standards these numbers are not extraordinary, they may be signalling a shift in the Maltese mentality.

Political party strategists will be trying to understand who these people are and why they chose to protest in this way.

The high abstention was also accompanied by a reduction in votes for both major parties and an increase of more than 5,000 votes for third parties.

The Labour Party’s victory gave it an impressive 39,000-vote lead over the Nationalist Party, which was hit hardest by the high abstention rate.

Whether general elections will adopt the same trend as European Parliament elections, where the abstention rate is much higher, still has to be seen but Saturday’s numbers will have party officials scratching their head.