Chris Said has said that he was left out of the PN’s shadow Cabinet because he formed part of Lawrence Gonzi’s Cabinet when the PN was still in government before 2013.

Asked about his exclusion from the PN’s shadow Cabinet on Monday by The Malta Independent, the Gozitan MP told this newsroom that he was told by PN leader Bernard Grech that he was not going to be given a portfolio because he formed part of the Gonzi administration.

This was communicated to Said during a meeting with the PN leader, he said.

Asked to comment on whether he was satisfied with this outcome, he said that “this is not a matter of whether I am happy with the decision or not… it is the prerogative of the Leader, which I understand.”

Asked whether he expected to be given the Gozo portfolio, which was instead handed to new MP Alex Borg, Chris Said told this newsroom that “it is the prerogative of the Leader, to identify the circumstances and decide depending on what he thinks is the best appointment for what at that moment.”

Said pledged to repay the trust he was shown in the last general elections and previous ones, with the work he will be doing throughout the next legislature.

Asked whether he was bothered by the fact that he was elected without obtaining a quota, he said that it didn’t bother him at all as “three quarters of the parliament is elected without obtaining a quota, as only a few obtain it immediately.”

Apart from Chris Said, PN veteran MPs Mario De Marco and Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici were also left out of the PN’s shadow Cabinet.

Both De Marco and Mifsud Bonnici declined to give comments to The Malta Independent about their exclusion – however they too formed part of the Gonzi administration prior to the first of the PN’s crushing electoral defeats in 2013.

All three of them have previously occupied important roles in previous legislatures, but it appears that PN Leader Bernard Grech wanted to make a break with the past with his appointments for the upcoming legislature after the 2022 general election.

Chris Said was first elected to parliament in 2008, after which he was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary for Public Dialogue and Information within the Office of the Prime Minister by Lawrence Gonzi. In 2012 he was appointed as the Minister for Justice, Dialogue and the Family under the same Gonzi administration.

Mifsud Bonnici meanwhile has been in Parliament since 2003, and held a number of parliamentary secretary or ministerial posts throughout the Gonzi administrations which followed his first election.

He was the subject of a no confidence vote in 2012 which ultimately passed after PN MP Franco Debono voted with the PL opposition against Mifsud Bonnici.

Mario De Marco has, likewise, been in Parliament since 2003, and was part of Gonzi’s Cabinet between 2008 and 2013, serving first as a parliamentary secretary and then as Minister for Tourism, Environment, and Culture.

All three were re-elected to Parliament in 2022, but with far less convincing performances than past elections:  Chris Said was beaten comprehensively by newcomer Alex Borg, while another new candidate, Darren Carabott, achieved a higher number of votes than De Marco did as well.

Mifsud Bonnici meanwhile had to rely on a casual election in a district where the best performing non-elected candidate, Janice Chetcuti, chose not to contest the said casual election because she would be elected to Parliament through the gender corrective mechanism regardless.

All of the other PN MPs have been granted some form of responsibility in Bernard Grech’s shadow Cabinet.