Rosianne Cutajar has been elected to parliament after contesting Thursday's casual election and will be taking up a seat on the sixth district vacated by Foreign Minister Ian Borg.
Former whip Glenn Bedingfield has also been elected to parliament after failing to secure a seat in the March 26 election.
The casual election for the Labour Party seats took place on Thursday morning and was over within minutes as electronic voting made the entire recount process speedier. There were 38 nominations for the eight vacancies.
Cutajar had resigned from cabinet in February 2021 over her alleged role in an Mdina property deal with Yorgen Fenech, the businessman accused of masterminding the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia.
A probe by standards commissioner George Hyzler found Cutajar had breached the Maltese parliament’s ethics standards over her failure to declare income from the deal.
Cutajar failed to get re-elected in the general election. She obtained 1,974 votes in Thursday's casual election.
Meanwhile, Żebbuġ mayor and doctor Malcolm Paul Agius Galea was elected in the seventh district and Mosta mayor Romilda Baldacchino Zarb in the eleventh. Mqabba mayor Omar Farrugia has also been elected.
Ray Abela, Katya de Giovanni as well as Rebecca Buttigieg have also made it to parliament.
The other seat on the 9th district will be filled by co-option and the PL executive has already approved the nomination of Randolph Debattista, who this week was also appointed PL CEO.
The casual election means an exit for veteran former minister Joe Mizzi, former parliamentary secretary Anthony Agius Decelis and former MPs Jean Claude Micallef and Oliver Scicluna.
According to sources, Buttigieg is one of two women likely to be appointed parliamentary secretary by Prime Minister Robert Abela.
When he appointed cabinet, Abela had said he would be choosing more women to fill up other roles so as to ensure better female representation. This, he said, will be done to be in line with the gender mechanism that will be implemented to ensure women are better represented.
Which candidates were replaced?
Prime minister Robert Abela, who was elected from both the second and the fifth districts gave up his seat on the latter - this has now been taken up by Omar Farrugia.
Health minister Chris Fearne gave up his seat on the fourth district after also being elected on the third one - Katya de Giovanni has been elected instead.
Finance Minister Clyde Caruana, co-opted into parliament by Abela’s administration was elected on the second and eighth districts. He dropped his seat on the second district - Glenn Bedingfield has now been elected.
Culture Minister Owen Bonnici dropped his seat on the third and kept the one on the fifth district - his seat has been taken up by Ray Abela.
Foreign minister Ian Borg, elected on the sixth and seventh districts dropped his seat on the former district - Rosianne Cutajar has replaced him.
Economy minister Silvio Schembri, also elected on the sixth and seventh two districts gave up the seventh district seat - Malcolm Paul Agius Galea has been elected instead.
Education Minister Clifton Grima, elected on the ninth and tenth ones dropped the seat on district nine - this has been taken up by Rebecca Buttigieg.
Energy Miriam Dalli dropped the 11th district seat and retained the one on the fifth district - Mosta mayor Romilda Baldacchino Zarb took this over.
Family Michael Falzon meanwhile dropped the seat on the ninth district and kept the one on the tenth.
Since Falzon and Grima both gave up their district nine seats and PL had only five candidates contesting that district, with two of the remaining three - Edward Zammit Lewis and Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi – being elected on other districts, Rebecca Buttigieg was automatically promoted into parliament.