A local councillor has been stopped from contesting the upcoming general elections by the Nationalist Party because he had been encouraging cross-party voting and breached the PN statute, the party said in a statement on Sunday.
James Cauchi had been a local councillor representing the Nationalist Party in Cospicua for the last 25 years, but was stopped from contesting the upcoming local council elections by the party itself.
He subsequently filed a judicial protest where he alleged that his bid to re-contest was blocked through “malicious” manoeuvres by an “internal faction” which was “gradually preparing to push forward a new candidate to replace the current leader Bernard Grech.”
Cauchi subsequently gave an exclusive interview to the Labour Party’s media house on the matter on Sunday.
The party responded in a statement, saying that during the last years – particularly in the run-up to the 2022 general election – Cauchi “repeatedly encouraged people to vote for candidates who were contesting for the Labour Party.”
“This happened through social media and also by attending activities of candidate and today Parliamentary Secretary Alison Zerafa Civelli. At the same time, James Cauchi was representing the Nationalist Party as a local councillor in Cospicua,” the party said. Zerafa Civelli was mayor of Cospicua at the time.
“Despite the fact that the party told James Cauchi that this attitude was not in conformity with what was expected by the party, he repeatedly continued to persist in this even after the general election,” the party said.
It continued that despite this and out of good will, the party felt that it should include Cauchi in a mass email to all local councillors asking them if they would be interested in re-contesting with the PN, in the hope that his attitude would change.
The PN said that Cauchi spent months not expressing his intention on whether he wanted to re-contest or not but at the same time continued to use social media to encourage people to engage in cross-party voting and vote for both the PN and the PL.
After some time, the party said, Cauchi had asked Secretary General Michael Piccinino to re-contest the next general election.
“This request was discussed by the party’s Administrative Committee in light of how he was repeatedly behaving in public and also notably has his behaviour had blatantly breached the party’s statute,” the PN said.
It is on these grounds that the party’s administration decided that Cauchi should not be allowed to contest the upcoming elections in its name, the PN said.
“That which happened in the last two days is proof of how right the party administration was to not accept Cauchi’s nomination due to a lack of loyalty towards the party,” the PN said.
It continued that it had chosen to remain silent and not comment on the matter, but since Cauchi had chosen to go public, the party had no alterative other than to share the facts “as they happened.”