NAXXAR: Malta’s Labor Party won an unprecedented fourth term on Sunday in a victory over outgoing Prime Minister Robert Abela, who had called for snap elections amid geopolitical uncertainties.Fireworks were set off across the small Mediterranean island and excited Labor supporters dressed in the party’s red chanted “Four times!” Raised the slogan of. Officials at the counting house in Naxxar said preliminary results had given the election to the governing party.“I’ve voted Labor since I was a little girl, I’m thrilled they’ve made history,” Margaret Camilleri, 73, told AFP.Abela, 48, sent the country to the polls a year early, saying the government needed a new mandate to save the small, import-heavy island from the Middle East crisis.While Malta’s economy grew 4.0 percent last year, there are concerns that the conflict could have an impact on tourism due to rising aviation fuel costs and rising inflation.Abela campaigned on Labor’s economic record since 2013, promising stability in a period of uncertainty.“All indications show that the Malta Labor Party has made history by winning four consecutive elections,” he said.His main rival was Nationalist Party (PN) candidate Alex Borg, a 30-year-old lawyer and former “Mr. World Malta” beauty pageant winner, who has urged Maltese to vote for change.Borg acknowledged in an address posted on social media on Sunday that he had “personally called Robert Abela to congratulate him” on the victory.Abela has led Malta since 2020, when his predecessor stepped down in 2017 following a political crisis over the murder of reporter Daphne Caruana Galizia, who exposed corruption at the highest levels in the country.Malta lags far behind in the fight against corruption, according to a 2025 Council of Europe report – but the issue was not a hot topic during the campaign.population boomMalta’s economic performance outweighed other concerns.Located off the coast of Sicily, Malta is the European Union’s smallest and most densely populated country, with about 550,000 people living in 316 square kilometers (122 sq mi).The island’s economy is largely based on tourism, online gaming and financial services and has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the European Union.But despite the low birth rate, the population has increased by about 30 percent in a decade, mainly due to the contribution of foreigners.This has led to a surge in construction work, filling the skies with cranes, creating traffic snarls and putting pressure on key services.Heritage groups have condemned environmental degradation and threats to UNESCO World Heritage sites in the former British colony.The country has very few natural resources and imports most of its energy, making it vulnerable to external shocks.Labor heavily subsidizes energy bills and has pledged to continue doing so.Malta is also on the front lines of climate change and is at risk of desertification and drought, but none of the main parties has made the issue a priority.There is one Green party, the ADPD, but no third party has held even a seat in the Parliament of Malta since independence in 1964.