The Nationalist Party has pipped the Labour Party in the number of candidates it will field for the upcoming general election. It will feature 70 candidates to Labour's 69.
The Electoral Commission received a total of 304 nominations from 173 candidates by the time the call for nominations closed on Sunday.
Apart from the Labour and Nationalist parties, the election will be contested by ADPD, Christian political party ABBA, Volt and Partit Popolari. There will also be four independent candidates.
Labour’s 69 candidates filed 122 nominations. 53 of them will be contesting two electoral districts. Similarly, the Nationalist Party has 70 candidates who together filed 108 nominations. 38 of them will be contesting two districts.
ABBA filed 28 nominations from 14 candidates while ADPD filed 20 nominations from 10 candidates, who will all be contesting on two districts. Partit Popolari has 15 nominations from eight candidates while Volt is fielding two candidates on four districts.
There are 11 nominations from four independent candidates, three of whom are contesting the election on two districts.
With 28 candidates each, the eighth and 10th electoral districts are the ones with most election candidates. The lowest number of candidates is in Gozo, the 13th electoral district, with 17 candidates.
The commission is in the process of verifying the applications received.