The Nationalist Party filed a court case to defend the interests of the residents of St Paul’s Bay, seeing that the Labour Party was trying to hijack the local council when it knows it does not have the electoral mandate to run it, PN secretary general Clyde Puli said.
The court had already upheld a request made by Puli on 6 February. The court had then ruled that no elections for mayor should be held as was being proposed.
Addressing the media, MP Robert Cutajar said that in the last election St Paul’s Bay residents had voted for the PN in their majority. Obstacles within the council operations had prevented the council from being administered properly, he said.
The party lawyer, Errol Cutajar, said that when mayors resign, the vacant position should be filled up by a councillor from the same political party who obtained the highest number of votes after the resigning mayor.
Graziella Galea resigned from mayor of St Paul’s Bay in January as she was facing a motion of no confidence filed earlier by all Labour councillors as well as two former PN councillors who had stayed on as independents. The motion speaks of “problems in the running of the St Paul’s Bay local council’, which have been ongoing for a while.