Updated at 11.23am when DOI issued the results

The official results of Saturday's general election were finally published on Monday at 11.23am, hours after Chief Electoral Commissioner Joseph Camilleri presented them to President George Vella.

The detailed results can be found here,

They confirm the Labour Party's third landslide victory, with 55.1% of the popular vote (162,707 votes) while the PN obtained 41.74% of the vote (123,233). That leaves Labour with a massive 39,474 vote majority.

As for the smaller parters, ADPD came out on top with 1.61% of the share of the vote (4,747 votes), followed by Partit Popolari at 0.52% (1,533), ABBA at 0.46% (1,364). The four independent candidates between them garnered 1,282 votes while Volt Malta obtained 382 votes. 

While the outcome of Saturday's election was well known, and as the prime minister was being sworn in on Monday morning, the public still did not know how many votes each individual candidate achieved, at what count the successful candidates were elected, and how votes were transferred.

The figures were only disclosed to the political parties.

The vote-counting process was made electronically for the first time this year, with the political parties updated every five minutes by the commission.

According to law, the political parties had four hours within which to contest the results, before they were published. They agreed on the final result just after 1am on Monday.

According to law, the commission must publish the results 'not later than the working day following that on which the result of the counting of the votes has been ascertained.' The results must contain the full list of elected candidates. 

Questions sent to the Electoral Commission for an explanation of the delay had not been answered by the time of writing.