Labour candidate Gavin Gulia will not be contesting the casual election in the sixth district, if there will be one, but is sending out a clear signal that he is interested in the post of Malta Labour Party deputy leader for party affairs.
Speaking to this newspaper, Dr Gulia stated that he is not interested and is not going to contest a casual election for the sixth district, if the MLP decides that Charles Mangion should relinquish that district.
Even though he was not elected and is refusing to contest the by-election on the sixth district, Dr Gulia said that he will still remain active in the political sphere.
“After the elections I received so much support from the electorate, family and friends that I will remain active. I sent out a very clear signal that I am interested in contesting the post of Labour deputy leader for party affairs,” he said.
The Labour candidate, a former parliamentary secretary in the Sant government, contested the sixth and seventh district and surprisingly failed to get elected in both. However, there is the possibility that he is elected in a by election since deputy leader Charles Mangion was elected in both the fourth and sixth district and will have to yield one. At this stage, it is more than probable that Dr Mangion will cede the sixth district, giving Dr Gulia the chance to be elected.
However, speaking to The Malta Independent, Dr Gulia categorically stated that, if there will be a casual election on the sixth district, he will not contest it.
He explained that he concentrated all his efforts on the seventh district and had to neglect the sixth district where he was sure that he had very few second count votes.
“I was not expecting a good show on the sixth district – I lost a lot of votes on the seventh district because of the change in the electoral boundaries,” he said.
However, even though he knew he would not collect enough votes to be elected on the sixth district, Dr Gulia still contested it out of loyalty to the Siggiewi electorate. “Siggiewi formed part of the seventh district but is now part of the sixth. Out of respect to the Siggiewi residents I still contested it,” he said.