The University student council election held yesterday had a low turnout, according to provisional estimates by the electoral commission.

As of 2 p.m., the turnout at the Tal-Qroqq campus was 852 while at the Junior College 479 students had voted out of a student population counting some 13,000.

The election was contested by 11 candidates on behalf of Christian Democrat organisation SDM and three students from leftist coalition Moviment Indipendenti, who contested the election "for the sake of democracy".

Electoral commissioner Lucianne Caruana said the turnout was "very low" and the commission was expecting 1,800 votes at most, which encompassed votes cast at the Institute of Health Care, the Bighi conservation centre and the Gozo campus, where no votes had been cast by 2 p.m.

Last year, the election, contested by SDM and coalition Act, saw 2,812 votes being cast, with SDM beating Act by a narrow margin. The results are expected today.