Former Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando will be contesting the general election on behalf of the Labour Party.

He submitted his nomination this evening four days after he had said he was seriously considering standing with Labour.

Read: Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando 'seriously considering' standing with Labour

He said when contacted today that he had been discussing the issue with the Joseph Muscat and his family for the past week and decided to do his bit for the country and help the prime minister to continue to push the country forward.

Asked how he was now contesting with a party he had fought tooth and nail in 2008 when the issue of a project on land he owned in Mistra had been brought up, Dr Pullicino Orlando claimed that matter had been concocted by the Nationalist Party to win that election.

Dr Pullicino Orlando contested the general elections of 1996, 1998, 2003 and 2008 as a PN candidate and was always elected. In 2008 he was elected from two districts, despite being embroiled in the Mistra controversy.

As a Nationalist MP, he had, on his own initiative, moved a motion in parliament which eventually led to a referendum and the introduction of divorce in 2011.

He also voted with the Labour Opposition in a motion which led to Richard Cachia Caruana resigning his post as Malta's ambassador to the EU.

He then left the PN parliamentary group and stayed on as an independent MP in the dying months of the last PN government.

In the run-up to the last election, he backed the Labour Party and Dr Muscat retained him in his post as chairman of the Malta Centre for Science and technology. He has since maintained his criticism of the Nationalist Party.

Read: JPO explains on Mistra land project