Alex Agius Saliba was the first Labour MEP to be elected on Sunday after exceeding the quota.

Agius Saliba lived up to his billing as Labour’s front-running candidate, capturing 63,899 votes - a record for the party.  

It is a huge improvement on his performance in 2019, when he won 18,808 votes in the first count.

That time round, Miriam Dalli, now a minister, was Labour’s front-runner with 63,438 votes.

Agius Saliba has benefited from both Dalli and former prime minister Alfred Sant not being on the ballot sheet this time round.

In comments at the counting hall, Agius Saliba said the most important thing is that Labour won a majority. 

"We have always been the party of the people and that needs to continue being our recipe. We will be analysing the result and seeing what we need to do to ensure we remain the people’s natural choice.

"We will not make the mistakes the PN made in the past. We won’t be stubborn," he said. 

Born in January 1988, Agius Saliba graduated as a lawyer.

He has been active in the Labour Party since his teenage years, having occupied the role of secretary general within the PL’s student movement Pulse.

He then moved to the Labour Party youth branch, Forum Żgħażagħ Laburisti, where he occupied the role of secretary general and later on became president.

After being elected to the European Parliament in 2019, Agius Saliba has served on numerous committees, including the committee on internal market and consumer protection.

Agius Saliba spearheaded the parliament’s efforts to introduce a universal charging standard for electronics manufacturers.

In March 2024, Saliba was one of twenty MEPs to be given a "Rising Star" award at The Parliament Magazine's annual MEP Awards. 

He focused his campaign for the 2024 elections on bread-and-butter issues, particularly rising food prices. 

His demands for the European Commission to investigate food importers over price hikes drew criticism from the Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises. 

The European Commission in turn invited Agius Saliba to take his grievances to the local authorities. 

Agius Saliba has long accused importers of breaching anti-trust rules, saying a few large operators were exploiting the high inflation rate to increase their already hefty profits.

Agius Saliba was among the first Labour candidates to be endorsed by ex-prime minister Joseph Muscat back in March. 

All eyes now turn to who will win Labour's second seat. 

According to the last pre-election polls, Daniel Attard and Thomas Bajada could well be in a tight battle for the next seat.