Former Nationalist parliamentary secretary Edwin Vassallo has announced he will be a candidate for the European Parliament elections, but he will not be on the PN ticket.

"I took this decision, because I feel, and believe, that our values for life, the family, and our freedom, have never been as threatened as they are today. Every decision that is taken nowadays, is taken based on profits only, and as a result we may have a strong economy, but no one is considering the way our values for life, the family and freedom are being steamrolled over," he said in a Facebook post.

Vassallo, a conservative former Mosta mayor, was one of the most vocal opponents of divorce and actively campaigns against the introduction of abortion. He was the only MP who opposed the introduction of same-sex marriages  in 2017 and voted against the domestic violence bill in 2018 raising concerns about references to gender which he said tried to paint over differences between men and women.

In 2019 he apologised for having shared a Facebook post warning about bananas being injected with HIV-infected blood.

He failed to get elected in 2022 after 25 years in parliament, winning just 371 first-count votes (on a district where Bernard Grech was a candidate and got the most votes).

He subsequently left the PN and set up Moviment Solidarjeta'. 

Vassallo last year warned against Roberta Metsola taking over the leadership of the Nationalist Party, saying the PN would keep on losing.