A large political banner used to promote Prime Minister Robert Abela in the last general election is still hanging on the façade of the scheduled Rialto cinema, two months after the election.

The blue banner reads Malta Flimkien, the Labour Party’s official slogan, and carries the words Robert Abela 2022, a phrase used to brand much of Labour’s campaign material.

While political billboards related to general elections, referendums, European Parliament or local council elections do not require planning permission in order to be erected, this is only valid for up to one week following the result of election being announced, according to the Billboards and Advertisements Regulations.

The planning process does not apply in this case because the building is owned by the party- Labour Party spokesperson

Malta went to the polls on March 26, with the official result published by the Department of Information two days later on March 28.

According to the regulations, published as a legal notice in 2018, the owners of the building should have applied for planning permission if they intended to keep the banner up beyond the one week after the election.

At the time of writing, no application for a permit to keep such a banner at the Rialto was publicly available on the Planning Authority’s website.

A Grade 2 scheduled building, the Rialto cinema is owned by the Labour Party. Designed by Maltese architect Edwin England Sant Fournier, the building’s striking Art Moderne façade is an iconic feature of the Cospicua waterfront.

The Rialto Theatre at Cospicua. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

Three Labour billboards still on display

Meanwhile, political billboards related to the Labour Party’s campaign are still also up two months after the election, with one still visible on the Mellieħa bypass.

A spokesperson for the Labour Party said that the regulation limiting the period of time that political banners can be displayed without going through a planning process did not apply in this case because the building is owned by the party. That makes them free to hang banners on it as they deem fit.

Explaining the lingering presence of the party’s political billboards on the roads, the spokesperson laid the blame on one of the contractors hired to handle the party’s promotional material.

The contractor, he said, typically waits until a new advertisement for the billboard space has been booked, to avoid making more than one trip.

The party is informed that there are three remaining political billboards still on display and these are expected to be removed in the coming days, the spokesperson said.

This is not the first time Abela’s campaign banners have made headlines.

Early in March, former Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi claimed that road signs on a footbridge on Aldo Moro Road in Marsa had been removed to accommodate Abela 2022 banners.

The Labour Party refuted this claim, with photos taken of the bridge the year before showing that the signs had already been removed in December 2021.