Voters on Saturday were asked to fill out two ballot sheets: one being for the European Parliament elections and the other for the, oft less publicised, local councils election.
It’s the second time that all of Malta and Gozo’s 68 local councils are up for election at one go after 2019, and recent history has suggested that these councils have become an important tool for political parties to identify talent that may make it to Parliament in the future.
It is also politics at grassroots level: cross-party voting is more likely, and momentum shifts are more commonplace.
The 2019 local council elections were a Labour Party landslide, as it won 47,116 more votes than the Nationalist Party – some 5,000 more votes than the already super majority it secured in the European Parliament elections that same year.
That was transferred into the PL winning several localities where usually the elections are close – Valletta, Siggiewi, Mosta, San Gwann and St Paul’s Bay being among those.
But what does that mean today, in a scenario where the PL seems, if you had to believe the surveys, to have lost some of its popular support? Will the counting days throw up a blue wave as some localities revert to the PN? Or will the sea of red localities remain as is for another five years? And what part will the bumper field of independent candidates this year play?
The best places to find the answers to these questions are in the following 14 localities.
The counting of the votes of the local council elections will take place between Wednesday and Friday.
Valletta
2019 – PL: 1,884 (53.03%), PN: 1,632 (45.93%), PD: 37 (1.04%)
The capital city was a major victory for the PL in 2019, in what is a local council which up until then had traditionally been associated with the PN.
It hasn’t been plain sailing however: there have been complaints over the government’s relaxation of noise limits for establishments operating within the capital, and public space has been encroached upon with tables and chairs like never before – with the local council not offering more than a whimper of resistance.
On the candidates front, it’s known that both mayor Alfred Zammit and deputy mayor Ray Azzopardi don’t particularly see eye to eye with each other. The race to become mayor only came down to 12 votes back in 2019, and the introduction of new candidate Olaf McKay, who has campaigned heavily into the mix, may add a new element.
On the PN’s side, their top candidate Christian Micallef will not be contesting – no doubt a blow considering that he singlehandedly received 70% of the PN’s votes in the locality in 2019.
The addition of two independent candidates – residents’ activist Billy McBee and former Malta goalkeeper Reggie Cini – to the ballot sheet may offer a new dimension as well.
Siggiewi
2019 – PL: 2,770 (50.64%), PN: 2,700 (49.36%)
This was another major coup for the PL back in 2019 as it won a majority – albeit by the smallest of margins – in the locality for the first time ever.
Seventy votes was all there was between the two parties, so Siggiewi will be a locality which is most certainly one of the hardest fought.
With this in mind, the reason why 99 voters were told to register themselves at a social housing block in the locality despite the fact that the same block was not yet habitable starts to make a bit more sense.
Those 99 registrations were reverted after the PN lodged court action, and magistrates even ordered police to investigate the public officials who were behind what can be constituted as electoral fraud.
The margins are finer than anywhere else in Siggiewi, so every vote will count.
Birkirkara
2019 – PL: 6,911 (52.24%), PN: 5,777 (43.67%), AD: 374 (2.83%), PD: 89 (0.67%), MPM: 79 (0.60%)
The PL has held onto this locality since winning it in 2013 and, although their share of the whole electorate here is not convincingly high, one can expect that the incumbents will be in pole position to hold onto their place.
There is potential for complication however: former PL councillor Kaylocke Buhagiar is now contesting as an independent candidate. With a campaign office placed slap-bang in the middle of the locality’s St Helen’s Square and a manifesto to complement, he has run a determined campaign over the past weeks.
He was the PL’s fourth most supported candidate on first count votes in 2019 out of a field of 10, and he may take some support off his old party, should there be some local discontent about the way the town has been run.
It will certainly be all change at the upper levels of the council too: mayor and long-time councillor Joanne Debono Grech is retiring from politics, and her daughter Yana Borg Debono Grech is contesting in her stead.
On the PN’s ballot sheet meanwhile, their two biggest vote gatherers in 2019 – Justin Schembri, who is now an MP, and Michael Fenech Adami – will not be contesting either.
St Paul’s Bay
2019 – PL: 4,016 (50.12%), PN: 3,432 (42.84%), PD: 246 (3.07%), Independent: 209 (2.61%), MPM: 109 (1.36%)
Another locality, which switched sides in the 2019 elections, going to the PL from the PN, St Paul’s Bay has been known to be somewhat more fickle than other localities when it comes to electoral patterns.
Now Malta’s most populous locality, it is also one of the localities which traditionally has the lowest turnout among its voters: only 32.2% of the residents, for instance, voted in 2019.
The PL had to work hard to convince mayor Alfred Grima to recontest, and have lost the young but popular Carlos Zarb from their ballot sheet as well. The PN meanwhile will not have former mayor Graziella Galea on the ballot sheet, but her father – the long-time former PN MP Censu Galea – will be contesting for a seat instead.
In a locality with a strong base of voters who are foreign and who therefore have no pre-conceived ties to either of the major parties, ADPD leader Sandra Gauci may also have a part to play in the final result.
Thirteen councillors will be elected, and if Gauci were to be one of them, it may well be the case that the gap between the two major parties would be such that they elect six candidates each – leaving a council in deadlock, with the outspoken Green party leader as the kingpin.
Mosta
2019 – PL: 6,150 (51.43%), PN: 5,809 (48.57%)
Mosta swapped allegiances from the PN to the PL in 2019, and its mayor Romilda Baldacchino Zarb then made the jump into Parliament in 2022.
With just 341 votes separating the two parties five years ago, this will be a hotly contested election, and the PL may well be worried what adverse effects roadworks in the town’s centre, which took far too long to finish, and the debacle surrounding the landscaping of an area next to the locality’s iconic church, may have on its popularity.
Seventeen candidates – nine for the PL and eight for the PN – will be contesting for the 13 council seats on offer, and that includes surprise returnee former PL MP Anthony Agius Decelis.
He was not elected to Parliament in 2022 – ironically it was Baldacchino Zarb who won his seat in a casual election – but one would imagine that he retains popularity, and may poll well, offering a boost to the PL in their hopes to retain the locality.
San Gwann
2019 – PL: 3,489 (50.63%), PN: 3,402 (49.37%)
San Gwann was another incredibly tight contest between the PL and the PN in 2019, with the PL ultimately managing to turn the locality from blue to red by a wafer-thin margin of 87 votes.
That came after the PL had won the majority of votes in the 2013 local council election, but did not win enough seats and therefore did not gain control of the council.
It is one of the localities which the PN will be targeting the most, and the party has fielded more candidates than their counterparts – although that isn’t much to go by: the same thing was the case in 2019.
The government on its part has done its part to prop up the PL’s aspirations, with one of Project Green’s first major urban greening project being centred in this locality. The PL mayor Trevor Fenech remains a popular character here too, and he will be recontesting his seat.
It’s all change on the PN ballot sheet meanwhile: out of its four councillors, only one – Dominic Cassar – will be recontesting. Former mayor Etienne Bonello Dupuis and Joe Aquilina will not be recontesting, while councillor David Dalli had resigned from the party in 2020 out of protest to how its then leader, Adrian Delia, was being treated, and he sadly passed away last year.
Mellieha
2019 – PL: 2,842 (48.46%), PN: 2,766 (47.15%), AD: 258 (4.40%)
Mellieha is one of the very few localities where the PL actually lost votes to the PN in the 2019 landslide, winning the locality by just 77 votes. That contrasted with their win by 279 votes six years prior.
It’s a pattern that may give the PN some hope of a turnaround – but it hasn’t been since 1999 that the PN obtained more votes than the PL in the locality, so history perhaps isn’t on the party’s side.
Still, the PN has fielded one more candidate (eight) than the PL in this locality, and while past locality heavyweights such as Robert Cutajar and more recently Ivan Castillo are now in Parliament, they will offer a strong canvassing basis to build upon. For instance, Castillo’s own wife Corinne is on the PN’s ballot sheet as a new candidate.
This is not to discount the PL: mayor Dario Vella is recontesting his seat, as are two of the party’s four other councillors.
Given the tight margins, the seat majority may well come down to how votes are inherited, and Mellieha tends to have a tendency to lend some support to third party candidates.
Independent candidate Matthew Borg Cuschieri, who throughout the campaign has had the backing of the popular podcaster Jon Mallia and other independent candidates such as Conrad Borg Manche, may well have a part to play in this contest – irrespective of whether he gets elected or not.
Zebbug (Malta)
2019 – PL: 4,494 (58.86%), PN: 2,106 (27.58%), Independent: 947 (12.40%), AD: 88 (1.15%)
Under most circumstances, Zebbug wouldn’t feature in a list like this. Usually offering a strong PL majority, with little doubt of that changing – at least in favour of the PN – the interest here is actually due to a group of three independent candidates standing for election.
Chief among those is Steve Zammit Lupi, who has already served as a local councillor for the last five years. He was elected immediately on the first count, comfortably passing the quota and registering 12.4% of the electorate’s votes.
This year, he returns to the ballot sheet together with his mother Elizabeth Zammit Lupi and a third independent candidate, Joel Chircop.
The council thus far was made up of five PL members, three PN members and Zammit Lupi. If the independent group were to take a seat off the Labour Party, then it would mean that no party would have a seat majority in the council.
This does come in the context of the PL having a very different ballot sheet than in 2019: none of the five councillors who voters elected back then will be recontesting their seat.
Mayor Malcolm Paul Agius Galea is now an MP, while his successor Mark Camilleri is not recontesting at the wishes of his late wife.
Councillor Philip Edrick Zammit had resigned and is now among those facing criminal charges in the Transport Malta driving licence racket. The remaining two councillors, Patrick Bonnici and Clive Azzopardi, will also not be recontesting.
Likewise, only councillor George Cortis will be recontesting for the PN.
In a field of new names, maybe an independent-led shake-up is in the offing.
Floriana
2019 – PL: 809 (58.67%), PN: 429 (31.11%), Floriana L-Ewwel: 118 (8.56%)
Floriana has an interesting history when it comes to local councils, having for a long-time had an independent mayor in the form of either Publio Agius or Nigel Holland.
Agius served as mayor between 1994 and 1999 and again between 2004 and 2007, while Holland served as mayor between 1999 and 2004 and again between 2007 and 2012.
Agius however hasn’t been elected to the council since 2007, while Holland lost his seat as a councillor in 2015. Agius didn’t contest in 2019 but Holland did under the Floriana L-Ewwel moniker and was not elected.
Now, both of them will be contesting again as independent candidates, as will a third new name – Christian Callus.
The PL has always had a comfortable margin over the PN in this locality, but with a history of electing independent candidates and the fact that the popular Davinia Sammut Hili, who had served as mayor between 2012 and 2022, is now an MP, leaves votes on the table.
The PL have fielded Sammut Hili’s sister Alexandra Sammut Hili instead – she has already served as a councillor in the past – in the hope of keeping her votes, but there is still a chance that an independent candidate is elected and possibly even be made mayor in what is a local council of five.
Gzira
2019 – PL: 2,069 (59.61%), PN: 1,307 (37.65%), AD: 95 (2.74%)
Gzira on the other hand has no history whatsoever when it comes to independent candidates, but neither has it faced a situation like this coming into a local council election.
Usually a relatively comfortable win for the PL – the last time the PN won the council was back in 2004 – with a one-seat majority from nine councillors, the interesting factor this year is that Conrad Borg Manche will be contesting as an independent candidate.
Mayor since 2015, Borg Manche is very popular in his locality: he obtained almost triple the quota back in 2019 amid his fight against development in Gzira, particularly in a garden which is essentially the town’s only green lung.
His much publicised split from the Labour Party on ideological grounds does not appear to have dented his popularity, and if he were to retain enough support from local voters then he could well prove to be a thorn in the PL’s side.
Xaghra
2019 – PL: 1,995 (66.04%), PN: 1,026 (33.96%)
Xaghra really shouldn’t be on this list – and it wouldn’t but for a strange break in a past pattern.
The Gozitan village is one of four in PL hands as from 2019, and with a two-thirds majority back then one wouldn’t expect this to change this year.
Yet where the PN only fielded two candidates in 2019, and four in 2015, this year the party is fielding seven – the most candidates that the PN has in any single Gozitan locality.
The PN hasn’t held a majority here since 2004, and support has dwindled ever since. But can a renewed ballot sheet propel them closer? It is led by the one-time MP Kevin Cutajar who has long served on the council, but the PL on its part has attracted mayor Christian Zammit back to the party after he had resigned in 2023.
Is there a chance of a surprise switch? Past history and patterns don’t give any such indications – but perhaps the PN knows something we don’t.
Gharb
2019 – PL: 436 (44.81%), Gharb L-Ewwel: 417 (42.86%), PN: 120 (12.33%)
One wouldn’t necessarily have expected a tiny Gozitan village to be a microcosm for independent politics, but that’s exactly what it became in 2019.
A small local party called Gharb L-Ewwel, led by former PN mayor David Apap, managed to capture 42.8% of the votes and elected two candidates in the council of five. The PL elected two of their own, leaving the PN as the minority party with just one councillor.
Apap was reappointed as mayor and this year, Gharb L-Ewwel is fielding four candidates – more than both the PN (three) and the PL (three) – and one wonders whether a full majority may be on the cards, making this humble village the first place to push both major parties into a minority.
Munxar
2019 – PN: 465 (51.96%), PL: 430 (48.04%)
In a dismal electoral campaign in 2019 for the PN, Munxar – which encapsulates Xlendi as well – was the only local council which the party managed to turn over from the PL.
It was a marginal switch: the PN won by just 35 votes (although that signifies a gap of almost 4% in the tiny village), so it is definitely one of those localities which the major parties will both be fighting over.
Ghasri
2019 – PN: 185 (53.94%), PL: 158 (46.06%)
One of Malta and Gozo’s smallest villages with just 523 registered voters back in 2019 – only 351 of whom actually voted – Ghasri may be a council where the PL will gain over the PN.
The PN had a majority of 27 votes (which translates to almost 8%) but its mayor Daniel Attard (not the MEP candidate) resigned from the party and addressed a PL mass meeting in the run-up to the 2022 general election.
Now he has confirmed his defection, and is on the PL’s ballot sheet instead of the PN’s. He received over double the quota in 2019 when he contested for the PN – if he can retain that support, then the locality may turn red.