(VALLETTA) - Maltese voters go to the polls on Saturday for the first time since the tiny Mediterranean state joined the European Union in 2004, with the two main parties running neck and neck in opinion polls.

The blistering election campaign in the island state has pitted the incumbent conservatives against their traditional rivals in the Labour Party, which has been out of power for most of the past two decades.

While the 54-year-old incumbent Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi has run on economic achievements, his less charismatic opponent, Labour Party leader Alfred Sant, 60, has pushed an anti-corruption platform.

Sixty-five seats are at stake as voting begins at 7:00 am (0600 GMT) on Saturday morning and ends at 10:00 pm.

In the 2003 vote, the Nationalists won 34 seats for Labour's 31.

Fully half the population of Malta, and nearly all of its 250,000-strong electorate, turned out on Thursday evening for twin rallies capping the five-week election campaign.

Some 100,000 people -- one-quarter of the population of the European Union's smallest member state -- filled Valletta's historic Granaries Square, as many waving EU flags as Nationalist and Maltese flags, for the rally backing Gonzi.

Across town, at the Luxol football ground in the tourist district of Pembroke, an equal number flocked to a rally in support of Sant.

The Labour rally, though notably less boisterous, was a sea of red and white, the party colours, and burst sporadically into song and fireworks.

The election is too close to call, with the daily Malta Today's latest survey on Thursday showing the Nationalists with an insignificant lead over Labour while nearly 11 percent remain undecided.

Voters traditionally produce turnouts topping 95 percent even though voting is not mandatory here.

"The pressure to vote from both parties is enormous," political scientist Edward Scicluna told AFP on Friday. "They keep tabs on you; it's an invasion of privacy," he charged.

Since the government is by far Malta's largest employer, providing two in five jobs, "people have so much to lose," said Scicluna, a professor at the University of Malta.

The two main parties are both near the centre, he noted. "They don't want to talk about divorce, abortion, any touchy subject. One is slightly to the left, the other slightly to the right. It's not because of ideology, it's patronage."

The island state south of Italy has been ruled by one or the other of the two parties since independence in 1964.

In the end, two small groups -- the green Democratic Alternative party and a powerful hunting lobby -- may wield disproportionate influence, observers say.

"The irony is that it's a small silent minority that will decide the election," television journalist Reno Bugeja told AFP over the roar of the Nationalist rally on Thursday.

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