Nationalist Party leader Bernard Grech will be contesting his first general election on the fifth and 11th electoral districts, Times of Malta can reveal.

The districts were decided by the party on Wednesday evening.

The fifth district includes Birżebbuġa, Kirkop, Mqabba, Ħal Farruġ, Luqa, Qrendi, Safi and Żurrieq.

The 11th is composed of Mdina, Attard, Mosta and Burmarrad.

The PN has two MPs who are elected from the fifth district: Toni Bezzina and Hermann Schiavone.

MPs David Agius, Ivan Bartolo, Maria Deguara and Edwin Vassallo were elected from the 11th district.

The fifth district is predominantly Labour-leaning, with the party in government winning more than 65.7 per cent of the vote in the last general election against the PN’s 33.2 per cent – a deficit of nearly 8,000 votes.

The 11th district, on the other hand, is a PN stronghold, with the party gaining 55.2 per cent of the vote against the PL’s 43 per cent – a difference of 3,000 votes.

Former PN leader Simon Busuttil contested the general election on the 11th district, when he received 11,200 first-count votes, while most of the Labour vote on the fifth district in 2017 went to former prime minister Joseph Muscat, who got 12,900 first-count votes.

Grech was voted in as party leader on October 3 after a revolt against former leader Adrian Delia.

He became Malta’s opposition leader on October 7 after MP Ivan Bartolo vacated his seat to enable Grech to become an MP.

Giglio, Sammut, Bencini approved as candidates

Lawyer Joe Giglio will run as a PN candidate. Photo: Facebook

Meanwhile, the party’s executive committee also approved criminal lawyer Joe Giglio as a candidate on the ninth and 10th electoral district, Mark Anthony Sammut on the fourth and 10th electoral districts and Jerome Caruana Cilia on the sixth district.

Graham Bencini, president of the PN's Forum of Professionals, will be contesting the 9th and 10th district.

The party made history with the approval of Angela Coleiro who will become Malta’s first ever trans woman to contest a general election, on the ninth and 10th districts. 

The party has not yet issued an official list of approved general election candidates.