The composition of Parliament as it is now is substantially different from the day when the newly-elected MPs all filed in for the opening ceremony to take their oath of office soon after the 2017 election.

We often say that resignations in Malta are hard to come by, but in this legislature we had a staggering 15 MPs who quit the House of Representatives. It’s not a small number. Fifteen resignations in a Parliament with 67 representatives make it more than one in every five.

Some did so to move to new, more lucrative jobs. Others left in disgrace. We had two charades – one on each side of the House – in which an MP resigned minutes after being sworn in, to make way for the co-option of another.

There should have been more MPs who quit. There were other MPs who were caught in situations which should have also triggered their resignation. But they have stayed on.

We also had several situations in which co-options led to the substitution of MPs who resigned. Some were necessary because the MPs who resigned had been elected via casual elections, and in this case there is no other way out than to have a co-option.

Other co-options were made by choice, with the Labour Party going for people close to Robert Abela – some of whom had not even contested the last election – while candidates who had a right to put their name down for a casual election were quietly told not to exercise their right. It’s how Abela, discarding the people’s wishes, decided to bring in people who are close to him to solidify his position, in the House and in the parliamentary group.

Better jobs

Some MPs called it a day to move on to new challenges, where the position is more prestigious and where the salary they pocket is higher than that of a minister or an MP.

For starters, veteran MP Helena Dalli moved to Brussels. After being elected for six consecutive elections, making her the second most elected woman in Malta after Agatha Barbara, Dalli went up a notch in her political career, taking on the role of European Commissioner for Equality. Under her watch, civil liberties were widened in Malta, but she found out that it is not so easy to repeat the process on the continent. Her office’s suggestions that Christmas should be replaced by holidays had to be withdrawn within days after a severe backlash late last year.

Dalli was replaced in the House by Jean Claude Micallef in a casual election.

Edward Scicluna also moved on to a more financially rewarding job as governor of the Central Bank of Malta. Since the PL had won the 2013 election, he had been the government’s face of finance, presenting budget after budget without introducing any new taxes while having, in his final months, having to contend with the economic difficulties that the Covid-19 pandemic brought about. A blemish on his record is the public hospitals deal, with Scicluna testifying in court that he had not been informed about a clause binding the government to a €100 million penalty if it reneged on the agreement.

Another septuagenarian, Manuel Mallia, also resigned during this legislature to take up the highly-regarded place of High Commissioner to London. Mallia was a top candidate in the 2013 election but his star quickly faded following an incident involving his driver, which led to his dismissal as minister.  He struggled to be re-elected in 2017 and, after resigning as MP, he was replaced by Jonathan Attard via co-option, as Mallia had made it to Parliament through a casual election.

On the Nationalist Party side, we had former leader Simon Busuttil resigning midway through the term to become the secretary general of the European People’s Party. Another PN MP, David Stellini, had resigned earlier also to return to his job in Brussels with the EPP. Stellini was replaced by Kevin Cutajar.

Marthese Portelli, who together with Helena Dalli was the only woman to be elected from two districts in the 2017 election, left at the same time as Busuttil to first take up the job of director general with the Malta Developers Association, and later moved on to become the CEO of the Malta Chamber of Commerce.

Charades

Both parties resorted to some manoeuvrings to get the people they wanted into Parliament.

When Scicluna resigned to cross over to the Central Bank, a casual election was held to replace him. In this case, the PL could not prevent the electoral process. One of the candidates eligible for the post on the district Scicluna vacated was Charles Azzopardi, who fell out with the PL after the 2017 election when he was not allowed to contest the 2019 local council elections. With the PL unable to control Azzopardi’s decisions, both other eligible candidates Gavin Gulia and Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando submitted their candidacy for the casual election. In the end, Gulia won, but after declaring his satisfaction on having returned to the House, he resigned minutes after being sworn in to make way for Oliver Scicluna.

The Nationalist Party had carried out a similar exercise to bring in their (then) newly-elected leader Adrian Delia into Parliament. Delia had not contested the 2017 election. Jean Pierre Debono sacrificed his hard-earned seat – nobody else wanted to give it up, apparently – to make way for the election of Peter Micallef via a casual election. Again, Micallef resigned soon after being sworn in for Delia to be co-opted.

The PN had to go through another co-option exercise to bring in Bernard Grech, who had beaten Delia in a leadership bid brought about after months of internal strife. This time, it was Ivan J. Bartolo who gave up his seat. Bartolo had won a casual election to replace Marthese Portelli, and so any substitute required a co-option to take a seat in the House.

One co-option which was necessary on Labour’s side was that to replace Etienne Grech, who had been elected in a casual election. In this case, a co-option was the only solution and Labour brought in Clyde Caruana, who later was also appointed Finance Minister.

Hard exits

The resignation of Joseph Muscat will, of course, remain as the most significant of the lot. Muscat quit from Prime Minister in January 2020 following links that were made to his office when the man now accused of masterminding the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galiza was arrested.

He stayed on as an MP for several months, was found to have breached ethics by the Standards Commissioner on a number of occasions, but left Parliament in time for him not to be sanctioned by the Standards Committee. The casual election exercise that was triggered by his resignation did not take place as none of the eligible candidates opted to submit their nomination. Instead, Muscat’s successor Robert Abela chose Miriam Dalli, who was later also made Energy Minister.

Another big name to leave in a storm was Muscat’s deputy Chris Cardona, who left the House after he was excluded from the Cabinet formed by Abela. Cardona also left the deputy leadership of the party. His name also came up in police investigations into the Caruana Galizia murder, an accusation which Cardona vehemently denies.

The latest two resignations from Parliament were also related to scandals.

Late last year, PL MP Silvio Grixti resigned after he was questioned by the police in connection with an investigation into the issuing of sick leave certificates. He was replaced by Andy Ellul in another co-option.

More recently, it was the turn of Nationalist MP David Thake to quit after reports indicated that his companies owe more than €750,000 in VAT arrears. Thake had replaced Simon Busuttil in a casual election, and his resignation required a co-option to replace him, with the PN choosing Graziella Galea.

Reluctance and resistance

There were other MPs who were involved in issues which led to calls for their resignation. But they have stayed on.

Konrad Mizzi was kicked out of the Labour Party parliamentary group in a decision which shows that the PL wants to sever its links with him. He remained as an independent MP.

Carmelo Abela also faced calls for a resignation after the Standards Commissioner found him to be in breach of ethics following a run of advertisements promoting himself, paid for by public money. At crunch time, with the vote deadlocked as PL representatives on the Standards Committee voted against the adoption of the report while the PN members voted in favour, the Speaker abstained from voting and Abela survived the ordeal without as much as a reprimand.

The same committee later voted to reprimand another Labour MP, Rosianne Cutajar, after she failed to declare income made from a sale of property. She had resigned from the post of parliamentary secretary but stayed on as an MP in spite of calls for her to quit. The reprimand turned out to be just a letter informing her about… the reprimand.

Justyne Caruana also stayed on as an MP after her resignation from Education Minister following a Standards Commissioner report ruling she had not acted appropriately when she gave a contract to a “friend”, Daniel Bogdanovic.

Ian Castaldi Paris, who had replaced Chris Cardona in a casual election, stayed on after it was reported that he owes €300,000 in tax dues.

Both Caruana and Castaldi Paris have said they will not contest the next election.

Death

Parliament had to register another change following the death of Nationalist MP Frederick Azzopardi. The Gozitan MP was replaced by Joe Ellis.