Too close to call

Maltese vote in tight election, from AFP:

The blistering election campaign in the politically polarised nation pitted the incumbent conservatives against their traditional rivals in the Labour Party, which has been out of power for most of the past two decades...This year's election is too close to call, with the daily Malta Today's latest survey on Thursday showing the Nationalists with an insignificant lead over Labour while nearly 11 percent of voters were undecided.

..Most voters are staunchly loyal to one or the other of the two main parties, which are both near the centre, said political scientist Edward Scicluna. "One is slightly to the left, the other slightly to the right. It's not because of ideology, it's patronage." About half of Malta's population turned out on Thursday evening for twin rallies staged by the two main parties to cap the five-week election campaign.

Labour activist Manuel Giordimain, speaking outside a polling station that he was monitoring in Valletta on Saturday, said his party "should win by three to four percent. We need a big change in Malta," he told AFP. His Nationalist counterpart George Borg, 47, said he predicted an even closer result decided by just 5,000 votes -- between one and two percent of the 300,000-strong electorate. "Here the elections are decided by the floaters," he said.

In the end, two small groups -- the green Democratic Alternative party and a powerful hunting lobby -- may hold the key, observers say..."The pressure to vote from both parties is enormous," Scicluna told AFP. "They keep tabs on you; it's an invasion of privacy," he charged. Since the government is by far Malta's largest employer, providing two in five jobs, "people have so much to lose," said Scicluna, a professor at the University of Malta...