Who is in with a shout in PN's casual elections race?

With election results in, party strategists have now set their sights firmly on the casual election race due to take place over the coming weeks.

Casual elections are held when candidates are elected in two separate districts. When this happens, candidates give up their seat, with votes recounted to determine who will take their place.

Unlike Labour, which gives the party a free hand to decide which seats elected MPs vacate, the PN statute says a candidate must automatically give up the seat in which they have received a lower share of the vote, understood as the percentage of the electoral quota.

This makes it slightly simpler to predict which of the MPs who missed out could take the place of the seven seats set to be vacated.

The Gozo question

Right off the bat, PN’s mechanism for vacating seats throws up a major surprise.

According to the party’s statute, PN’s Gozitan leader Alex Borg would have to give up his seat in Gozo, despite winning 12,211 votes in the district, more than twice as many as any other candidate.

The relatively large number of voters in the district means that the electoral quota in Gozo is particularly high.

Ultimately, Borg won 263% of the quota in Gozo, slightly lower than the 275% he won in district 12, where he won 2,500 fewer raw votes.

Alex Borg won over 12,000 votes in Gozo but may have to give up his seat in the district. File photo: Jonathan Borg

Should Borg give up his seat, this would effectively pave the way for either Luke Said or Norma Camilleri to win a seat in a casual election. If Said comes out on top, Camilleri could nonetheless find herself with a seat through a gender corrective mechanism.

This would lead to the unusual situation in which all five PN candidates on the Gozo ballot find themselves with a seat in parliament, despite the party having only initially won two seats.

However, sources suggest the party may be exploring ways for Borg to retain his Gozo seat, instead of giving up his seat in District 12.

This would open the door for academic George Vital Zammit, the author of the party’s electoral manifesto, to make it through to parliament.

Stanley Zammit, Ray Gatt, John Baptist Camilleri in the running

Veteran MP Stephen Spiteri, a particularly popular PN MP within Labour-leaning districts, will give up his seat in District 3.

Spiteri was initially the only PN candidate to win a seat in the district, with Janice Abela Chetcuti later being awarded a seat through a constitutional mechanism to ensure proportionality.

The race for Spiteri’s seat is likely to be between Ray Gatt, the face of the party’s pre-electoral healthcare reform proposals, and John Baptist Camilleri.

Stephen Spiteri will give up his District 3 seat. File photo: Mark Zammit Cordina

Newcomer Conrad Borg Manché, who won seats on districts 5 and 10, will drop the former, paving the way for Stanley Zammit to return to parliament.

Zammit was unlucky to miss out in the first place, winning more than 2,400 first-count votes, only slightly behind Borg Manché.

However, he fell behind once the inherited votes were tallied up.

Two casual elections in districts 7 and 10

There are likely to be two casual elections in District 7, with both Adrian Delia, one of the election’s top performers, and Rebekah Borg set to give up their seats.

This means that Ian Vassallo will likely make it to parliament, having narrowly missed out on a seat to Borg at the last hurdle, despite winning more first-count votes.

Former Rabat mayor Charles Azzopardi is in the lead for the second seat, with Andrew Agius trailing slightly behind.

The final casual elections will be held in District 10, where Joe Giglio and Mark Anthony Sammut are both set to give up their seats.

Joe Giglio was elected in two districts. File photo: Matthew Mirabelli

PN fielded a hefty 16 candidates in the district, meaning there will be no shortage of contenders jostling for the newly vacated seats.

The last to miss out in the district was Sliema native Graham Bencini, whose almost 1,400 first-count votes were not enough to win him a seat.

However, the district also features other popular figures, such as former Sliema and St Julian’s mayors Graziella Attard Previ and Albert Buttigieg, respectively, both of whom will be hoping to win a seat.

However, the former will almost certainly make it to parliament via the gender-corrective mechanism once it kicks in.