Parliament is still to be convened after the election and, yet, here we are with the first co-option of the legislature.

The Labour Party, with the assent of Prime Minister Robert Abela, has chosen to pick Randolph Debattista for a seat in the House of Representatives.

Debattista did not contest the last election. He did not go knocking on doors as other candidates did. He did not spend a cent to organise events, as other candidates did. He did no print leaflets or send calendars to homes, as other candidates did.

But the PL CEO will have a seat in Parliament.

Robert Abela has taken the meaning of co-option to a new level, one which is embarrassing, to him mostly, but it is also an attack on democracy. The PM, and with him the Labour Party, has again thrown the democratic process out the window. It happened in the last legislature, and it happened again within the first few days of the new term.

It is not what the people want, as it should be. It is what Robert Abela wants.

The Nationalist Party, in its statute, lays down that candidates elected from two districts have to cede the one in which they obtained the fewer number of votes. It seems a fair system, one that is pre-established, and one which does away with any internal manoeuvring there might be to push this candidate against the other. It avoids controversy.

The PL does not have such rules in its book. And so it was up to the party executive to decide which districts were to be given up. The effort was made to have all districts retaining at least one representative – all, except for the 10^th, which was sacrificed to make way for Abela’s chosen one.

Michael Falzon and Clifton Grima were both elected from the ninth and 10^th districts. But instead of having Falzon cede one and Grima the other, the PL chose to have them both give up the ninth district, which incidentally is also the one in which they obtained the higher number of votes.

With only one candidate eligible for a place in the House via a casual election on the ninth district, this meant that a co-option was needed to fill up the remaining vacant seat, with the PL choosing Debattista.

The PL’s intentions were clear – it did not want Evarist Bartolo to be elected. Bartolo had the best chance to make it if a casual election had been held on the 10^th district. Abela later justified the move as being part of the regeneration process – more bluntly, Abela was saying that the party wanted to kick Bartolo out and replace him with Debattista.

Technically speaking, the PL, therefore, has no one to represent it on the 10^th district, but Robert Abela does not care about this. Voters here should keep this in mind in five years’ time.

The PL worked differently on other districts – for example, Ian Borg and Silvio Schembri were both elected on the sixth and seventh districts. In this case, Borg gave up the sixth and Schembri the seventh. The PL did not do the same for the ninth and 10^th districts, where the party faced a similar situation.

Abela has once again imposed his will, rather than accept what the voters think.