Outspoken former shadow minister Jason Azzopardi said on Tuesday that he will contest casual elections on the ninth district, but admitted that his prospects of getting elected to parliament are slim.
Azzopardi, an MP since 1998 and former minister, had a disappointing showing at the election, failing to get elected from the fourth, from where he was elected in 2017, and ninth districts.
Casual elections will be held on the latter where new candidate Joe Giglio and Robert Arrigo will cede seats after being elected from two districts.
In a post on Facebook, Azzopardi said he was proud shown of the support shown to him by voters in District 9, which he decided to contest relatively late in the campaign, and would be contesting the casual election there.
According to the PN’s rules, MPs elected from two districts must cede the seat in the district from which they got the least votes - defined as the percentage of the quota obtained on the first count. The PL does not have such rules and decisions on which seats MPs should give up are taken by its leadership.
Once the parties inform the Electoral Commission which seats are being vacated, the commission will issue a call for nominations and then hold the casual elections after a few days.
The process does not involve any voting. Instead, the computers used to count the votes last Sunday will calculate who got the next preference votes on the ballots of the winning candidates.
Joe Giglio was elected on Districts 9 and 10, with a stronger showing in the latter so he will be giving up his District 9 seat. The same applies for Robert Arrigo.
Azzopardi had placed third among the candidates who were not elected from the ninth district. The first runner-up was newcomer Eve Borg Bonello, the election's youngest candidate, just 18 years old.
She won 1,314 first-count votes.
Next up was Swieqi mayor Noel Muscat with 940 votes. Then came Azzopardi with 856 votes. Albert Buttigieg got 640 votes, and Emma Portelli Bonnici got 599.
Trailing last on District 9 was close Azzopardi ally Karol Aquilina who got 530 votes.
Aquilina has indicated that he too will be contesting the casual election. On Tuesday, he wrote on Facebook that he “will be taking every step necessary” to translate the trust shown in him by voters’ into the outcome they wanted.
He had also contested District 10 which has one seat up for grabs since Mark Anthony Sammut was elected on two districts and will drop this one.
Finally, Emma Portelli Bonnici has also announced she will be contesting the casual elections in a Facebook post of her own.
She had unsuccessfully contested both districts 9 and 10.