Robert Abela has failed to match or improve on Joseph Muscat’s personal vote counts in the 2017 elections, albeit in the context of a lower general voter turnout and apathy towards the two main parties.
The prime minister contested the exact same districts as Muscat, in what Labour insiders say was a deliberate bid by Abela to go head-to-head with his predecessor.
Looking at the numbers, Muscat attracted 60% of the 24,366 valid votes cast in the second district, a Labour stronghold, during the 2017 election.
Abela by comparison won 51% of the 22,816 valid votes cast this time around in the same district.
In raw figures, this translates to 14,674 first count votes for Muscat in 2017 and 11,694 votes for Abela in 2022.
Moving to the fifth district, another Labour stronghold, Abela once again failed to reach the levels of support enjoyed by his predecessor.
The prime minister won 44% of the 22,789 valid votes cast, compared to Muscat’s 55% of the 23,215 votes in 2017.
As a raw vote count, Abela got 9,996 votes in 2022 compared to Muscat’s 12,886 in 2017 on the fifth district.
On a national level, Labour saw a loss of 8,269 votes - dropping from 170,976 to 162,707. This represents a 4.8% drop over its 2017 performance.
It did however increase its majority over the PN to 39,400 votes, up from 35,000 in 2017.
What about the PN?
Opposition leader Bernard Grech only contested one of the same districts as his predecessor Simon Busuttil.
Busuttil garnered 47% of the 23,910 votes in the 11th district in 2017.
This time around, Grech won 41% of the 22,801 valid votes in 2022.
In raw vote counts, Grech attracted 9,450 votes, while Busuttil had managed 11,266 in 2017.
Grech's direct predecessor Adrian Delia did not contest the 2017 election, and the pair contested different districts for Sunday's election.