Malta election vote likely to confirm pro-EU referendum

VALLETTA, April 11 (AFP) - Malta prepares to vote Saturday in a general election which is set to confirm a narrow pro-EU vote in last month's referendum on joining an enlarged European Union.

Final opinion polls gave the pro-EU governing Nationalist Party (NP) a healthy lead over the anti-EU opposition Labour Party after a divisive campaign dominated by Europe.

The Maltese narrowly plumped for membership when the Mediterranean archipelago became the first of 10 candidate countries to vote in a referendum on the EU last month, but the result must be confirmed by a general election.

Brussels, anxious to get the series of referendums off to a successful start and staunch any possible Euroscepticism, will have to wait until Sunday's election count for the first sure signs of Malta's accession.

Saturday's poll comes just days ahead of a meeting in Athens at which Malta and other candidate states are due to sign an EU accession treaty.

In a tiny island state where both main parties claim about 50 percent support, a pro-EU victory is not being taken for granted, despite a 49 percent to 29 percent lead for the government party in final opinion polls.

The NP holds 35 of the 65 seats in parliament, the remaining 30 held by Labour.

Dubbing it the most important election for decades, Labour has presented Saturday's vote as a last chance to say No to Europe.

But Prime Minister Eddie Fenech-Adami told his supporters in a final rally on Thursday night: "Malta would lose its credibility if next Saturdays election would reverse the result of the referendum."

If that happened, he said, "no-one will ever have confidence in our nation as a politically stable country in which one could trust and invest."

Labour leader Alfred Sant devoted most of his final rally to local issues.

"To those who say that we cannot move forward with Brussels we say that we have confidence in the Maltese people," said Sant, who as prime minister between 1996 and 1998 pulled Malta out of accession talks with the EU, only to have them revived by Fenech-Adami.

"Our programme is aimed towards the interests of the Maltese people. The others speak about Europe, we speak about the future, employment, schools and the care of the elderly," he said.

Sant rejects EU membership on the grounds that Malta's identity would be lost in a giant 25-state EU, envisaged by Brussels from May 2004.

Instead, he favours a "partnership" agreement which he said would leave "all doors open" to the Maltese. And he promised a second EU referendum "to let the people decide whether they want a partnership or membership."

In the March referendum, Malta voted by 54 percent to 46 percent to join Europe. Labour said less than half the electorate voted for Europe, many having heeded Sant's call for a boycott.

Turnout usually hovers around 95 percent in Maltese elections. A relatively low 91 percent voted in the referendum.