Three-horse race... or is it?

Speaker Louis Galea would not say whether he will be contesting the parliamentary seat vacated by outgoing Social Policy Minister John Dalli although Nationalist Party sources have cast doubt on his candidature.

Asked about his intentions with regard to the casual election in the sixth district, Dr Galea said yesterday he was "not commenting at this stage".

Cabinet and parliamentary changes will happen when Mr Dalli steps down to take up his new European commissioner post in Brussels.

Contacted yesterday, Mr Dalli said he would resign from Cabinet and Parliament when officially installed as commissioner.

"I'll be waiting for the European Parliament's plenary vote. Bar any hiccups, I will submit my resignation once the Commission is installed after the vote," he said.

The vote was scheduled to be taken on January 26 but the resignation yesterday of the Bulgarian nominee for the post of Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid, Rumiana Jeleva, has delayed the process by two weeks.

The casual election is now likely to take place sometime in February.

Apart from Dr Galea, the only two other PN candidates left in the race to fill the seat when it is vacated are Siġġiewi mayor Robert Musumeci and Żebbuġ councillor Peter Micallef. Neither have so far publicly voiced the intention to run although Mr Musumeci said he was "still looking into the matter".

He will start the casual election with 235 votes, the amount inherited by Mr Dalli when Mr Musumeci was eliminated in the election.

The other candidates will start at zero.

If both do throw their hats into the ring, despite his lead, Mr Musumeci would expect a good run for his money from Dr Micallef, who has a strong con-stituency in Qormi, Mr Dalli's home town.

If Dr Galea does contest too he would benefit from the alphabetical order system in which candidates are listed and, given traditional voting patterns, he could be assured of a substantial number of inherited votes.

The former minster's name has been raised in connection with Cabinet changes the Prime Minister is expected to make in the wake of Mr Dalli's departure.

However, Dr Galea's decision to contest the casual election could also be conditional on the timing of the mini-reshuffle.

If this happens before the casual election, whoever is elected would only make it to the backbench and that is a prospect the former minister may not want to entertain.

Apart from this prospect Dr Galea could not afford to contest the casual election and risk not getting elected, PN sources said.