VALLETTA, March 27, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - Malta was to begin counting votes
Sunday in an election expected to deliver a decisive victory for the Labour
government, but with turnout at the lowest level for years.

  Prime Minister Robert Abela is hoping for his first electoral mandate after
taking over two years ago in an internal party vote from Joseph Muscat, who
quit in a crisis sparked by the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

  Voting took place across the tiny Mediterranean island nation on Saturday,
and ballots were checked overnight before an electronic counting system
begins on Sunday morning.

  A preliminary result is expected within a few hours, if, as predicted by
pollsters, Labour wins by a large margin over the opposition Nationalist
Party.

  But the shine of victory is likely to be tarnished by signs of the lowest
turnout for years in a country that prides itself on an extraordinarily high
level of voter participation.

  In the last four general elections stretching back to 2003, turnout has
been above 92 percent.

  But election officials estimate this year's will fall to 85.5 percent of
some 355,000 registered voters.

  This is lower than analysts had predicted, following complaints of a
lacklustre campaign, restrictions on mass events due to coronavirus and the
shadow cast by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

  Labour is also still tainted by the high-level corruption exposed by
Caruana Galizia, who was killed by a car bomb in October 2017 -- a murder
that shocked the world.

  A public inquiry last year found the state under Muscat created a "culture
of impunity" in which her enemies felt they could silence her.

  He had already stepped down in January 2020, after public protests at his
perceived attempts to shield allies from the probe into her death.

  Abela has since moved to strengthen good governance and press freedom,
although Caruana Galizia's family say he has not gone far enough.

  This was the first general election in Malta in which 16- and 17-year-olds
were allowed to vote, although they have previously had that right in local
and European Parliament elections.