Independent candidate Arnold Cassola said on Tuesday that he will contest the 10th and 11th districts in the forthcoming general election.

It will be his eighth attempt to make it to the Maltese parliament and his first as an independent, having previously been a member of Alternattiva Demokratika, which he co-founded. He resigned over policy differences on abortion. 

In a statement, he said the 55-year-old bi-party situation in Malta had led to political shambles. "Politicians are meant to serve the people and society. However, certain dishonest and greedy businessmen control certain MPs, from both parties, and even ministers who, on their part, have reduced what is supposed to be the noble vocation of politics to an exercise in greed, nepotism, cronyism and favouritism."

A number of the national institutions did not favour the common man, he said. "The big fish keep swallowing the small. Inequality rules."

Cassola promised to exercise honest politics to serve all the people of Malta and Maltese society.

Cassola served as local councillor in Swieqi. His best result in Maltese politics was in the 2004 election for the European Parliament when he obtained 9.33% (or 23,000 votes) of the first-preference votes, just failing to be elected.  He was a deputy in the Italian Chamber of Deputies elected by Italian expatriates with the left-right-centre coalition L'Unione between 2006 and 2008 and secretary-general of the European Greens between 1999 and 2006.