The casual election process to fill the seats vacated by MPs elected on two districts has begun, with two nominations presented on Friday.

Labour's Gianluca Cutajar has put his name forward for the fifth district and Anthony Agius Decelis on the 11th, the Electoral Commission said.

General election candidates are allowed to contest in two voting districts but then must drop their seat in one of them. The Nationalist Party requires such candidates to drop seats in the district in which they obtained the lowest percentage of the district quota. The Labour Party decides which seats to drop in a secret vote taken by the party's executive.      

Vacant seats are filled by reviewing the ballot papers of the MP that vacated the seat, and distributing their preference votes to unelected candidates.

The commission said elections will be held in the second district for the seat ceded by Clyde Caruana, on the third for that dropped by Owen Bonnici, fourth (Christopher Fearne), fifth (Robert Abela), sixth (Ian Borg), Seventh (Silvio Schembri), ninth (Michael Falzon and Clifton Grima) and 11th (Miriam Dalli).

Nominations can be received until Tuesday at noon with the casual elections held on Thursday.

The seats vacated in the ninth districts have, technically, already been filled.

As the PL had only five candidates contesting the ninth, with two of the remaining three - Edward Zammit Lewis and Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi – being elected in other districts, Rebecca Buttigieg was automatically promoted to parliament.

With no more candidates to fill the remaining vacant seat, Prime Minister Robert Abela nominated Randolph Debattista for that post, and that decision was endorsed by the party executive.

There will also have to be casual elections for the seats ceded by Nationalist Party MPs.  

They will be held for district nine (Joe Giglio and Robert Arrigo), district seven (Adrian Delia, Ryan Callus), district five (Bernard Grech), district three (Stephen Spiteri) and district 10 (Mark Anthony Sammut).