Former parliamentary secretary Deborah Schembri to seek re-election
Clayton Bartolo took her place in parliament in 2017
Former parliamentary secretary Deborah Schembri has announced she will contest the forthcoming general election on the Labour ticket.
Schembri, a lawyer, made a name for herself when she was the co-leader of the movement which led to the introduction of divorce in Malta in 2011.
She was elected as a Labour MP on the 12th district in 2013 and was appointed parliamentary secretary for planning in 2016.
However, she failed to get re-elected in 2017 and lost her seat to Clayton Bartolo in a subsequent casual election.
Bartolo went on to become tourism minister but resigned the post and stepped down from the Labour parliamentary group in 2024 after a Standards Commissioner report concluded that he abused his ministerial power by giving his wife a top-paid consultancy job she did not do. He has indicated he will seek re-election and wants to do so as a Labour candidate, and has been holding constituency events.
Schembri said in a Facebook post that Robert Abela had urged her to return to frontline politics a few weeks ago.
"There is no greater honour than to serve one's country, and I therefore welcomed the invitation and with pleasure announce that I will be submitting my nomination in the coming days. Should I be chosen by the people, I will represent them with commitment, responsibility and diligence, as I have always done," she wrote on Facebook.