The 2003 Maltese EU referendum and general election

Abstract

On 12 April, the Maltese voted to return the Nationalist Party (PN) to office in what was, by Maltese standards, another landslide victory over the Malta Labour Party (MLP). Although a margin in excess of four percentage points between these two parties has been achieved before, in 1992 and 1998, such a gap was not expected this time, as both parties braced themselves for a tortuous count and a photo finish, while the third party, Alternattiva Demokratika (AD), entertained high hopes of gaining at least one seat in parliament. Such forecasts stemmed from a general feeling that the PN had been in office for 16 years, discounting as but a slight interruption the hapless Labour administration of 1996–98.