District 6 profile: A Galdes-shaped void

In this profile, Daniel Ellul profiles the sixth electoral district, which consists of Qormi, Siġġiewi and Luqa (including Ħal Farruġ). Read all the district profiles here. 

It seems like decades have passed, but until a few weeks ago, Roderick Galdes was campaigning as a Labour candidate in the sixth district.

Galdes had been at the centre of a series of allegations linking him to contractors and resigned in January on the eve of a story Times of Malta exposed linking his family to a housing contractor. 

He stayed on as a Labour MP but was eventually barred from contesting by the party. That decision has left a Galdes-shaped void in the district the former minister had represented in parliament since 2004.

Beside Galdes, Ian Borg and Silvio Schembri were elected on behalf of the Labour Party in 2022, while Jerome Caruana Cilia and Ryan Callus were elected on behalf of the Nationalist Party.

Ian Borg gave up his seat (keeping his district seven seat), and Rosianne Cutajar made it to parliament via a casual election.

Throughout the last three elections (2013 onwards), the PL have managed to win some 60 per cent of the vote, with most of the rest going to the PN.

In 2008, the last time the Nationalist Party won a general election, the PL still garnered more votes with a majority of 53.6 per cent.

Traffic on people’s minds

In Luqa and Qormi, traffic is the one issue candidates keep hearing about from voters, Times of Malta was told.

“It’s bad everywhere, but in Qormi it’s a disaster. It takes ages to get out and, once you do, people get stuck in the main roads.”

Qormi and Luqa also host several industrial and commercial areas.

“We’re not against commerce, but we have to admit the infrastructure hasn’t kept pace and the people of the district have not been properly compensated for it,” insiders said.

Across the district, residents frequently complain about the lack of open spaces in their towns, overdevelopment and poor maintenance of public areas.

A mayor and an academic fight for PN’s second seat

Jerome Caruana Cilia, from Qormi, has maintained close ties with his constituents throughout the last legislature and is running again.

Caruana Cilia was the district’s most successful candidate, garnering 4,662 first preference votes. That performance was enough to see him comfortably elected on the first count with 781 votes to spare.

More than half of Caruana Cilia’s second preference votes went to Ryan Callus, who was elected on the 15th count and who is not contesting this time around.

Siġġiewi’s mayor, Julian Borg, is among the people who could take Callus’s place.

“There was a rough divide when it was Jerome and Ryan. Jerome focused on Qormi and Ryan on Siġġiewi and Luqa. Ryan’s Siġġiewi voters could well go to Julian this time around,” a district insider said.

Although Qormi is far more populated than Siġġiewi, Qormi leans heavily in favour of Labour when compared to Siġġiewi.

“That means we can roughly elect one MP from Siġġiewi and one from Qormi,” a PN insider said.

Sources said that Borg has a good chance of winning a seat as he is popular in Siġġiewi and has campaigned in Qormi and Luqa as well.  He has also gained a national profile for leading the PN’s efforts in flipping the Siġġiewi council from PL to PN in 2024.

George Vital Zammit, however, could cause Borg an upset.

Unlike most candidates, Vital Zammit has not spent the past months working in his district. However, the academic has been given a bigger platform than most candidates by the PN’s administration.

Vital Zammit has written the PN’s manifesto and frequently appears on the party’s media.

“No constituency-minded voter will consider him, but he can attract those who like the idea of a soft-spoken technocrat – or who leans PN but is not a hardcore, mass meeting attending supporter,” one district insider said.

Labour’s three seats

Galdes was one of the PL’s two MPs who were elected on the district’s first count, winning 4,035 votes in 2022. Silvio Schembri was the other with 4,287 first count votes.

Schembri, from Luqa, will likely have no problem with being re-elected. As the economy minister, he has a national platform and is often linked to new foreign investment announcements.

He was given a rousing endorsement by the prime minister this week during the opening of a renovated garden in Qormi.

“I never had any doubt the garden would be completed because, when Silvio promises something, he delivers and delivers in the best way possible,” Robert Abela told a crowd of Qormi residents.

Schembri is probably the least likely PL candidate to attract voters who previously supported Galdes, although this is unlikely to dent his chances of being elected.

“It’s an open secret that the two never got along, and that has trickled down into their people. What’s more, Galdes is suggesting people vote for Ian Borg in the district,” one insider said.

“Rosianne Cutajar will likely gain from Galdes not contesting because they are both from Qormi,” they added.

Cutajar was the female candidate who received the second-highest number of first-count votes (2,158) across Malta in 2022, after Miriam Dalli.

That was still not enough to get a parliamentary seat in the regular election since Ian Borg ended up inheriting more votes than Cutajar to clinch the district’s third seat.

As deputy prime minister, Borg will likely be comfortably elected in both district 6 and 7; however, it will be up to the PL’s executive to decide which seat he holds on to.

It stands to be seen if Schembri also gets a seat in district 7 – in which case the same would apply to him.

Cutajar, a former Qormi mayor, was left out of cabinet for the entire legislature and even resigned from the PL parliamentary group for a while following the publication of hundreds of chats between her and businessman Yorgen Fenech.

She returned to the PL fray later in the legislature.

Two new candidates to keep an eye on are Ramona Attard and Omar Rababah. A former Labour Party president, Attard, was co-opted to parliament in January 2025. Since then, she has worked on her first election bid in districts 6 and 8.

Rababah announced his intention to run during the electoral campaign. Soon after, he was the target of Islamophobic attacks, making his candidacy a national point of discussion.

Omar Farrugia, a public works junior minister, is also running in the district; however, he is mostly focusing on District 5.

ADPD chair Sandra Gauci is also a candidate in the district.

The candidates running in the district are:

ADPD: Gauci Sandra.

Aħwa Maltin: Sacco Marianne.

Labour Party: Attard Ramona, Agius Galea Malcolm Paul, Borg Ian, Farrugia Omar, Cutajar Rosianne, Rababah Omar, Schembri Silvio.

Momentum: McBee Billy. 

Nationalist Party: Aquilina Frederick, Borg Julian, Caruana Cilia Jerome, Cilia Annabelle, Cini Oliver, Muscat George, Zammit George Vital.

Independent: Apap Noel. Bonnici Nazzareno.