Independent Gzira councillor Conrad Borg Manche said he had no choice but to leave the Labour Party which gave priority to capitalism before the people of Gzira.

In a post on Facebook, the former Gzira mayor paid tribute to his successor Neville Chetcuti, who was elected Friday, “as he has been chasing the post ever since we started together in 2015”.

Borg Manche was Gzira mayor in the past term before an acrimonious split with the Labour Party over plans to transform a public garden into a petrol station in the locality.

Chetcuti told Newsbook that Borg Manche had left on his own choice. In his reply, Borg Manche said he could not have stayed with a party that overlooked the interests of the residents.

“Did I have a choice when a clique within the current leadership worked behind my back to secretly issue a permit to humiliate and ridicule me in the eyes of the country?”, he said.

“Did I have a choice when the party of supposedly the workers in Parliament votes against a worker who was the victim of neglect in the presence of his mother and his relatives?”, he said, in reference to Jean Paul Sofia, who died in December 2022 when a building under construction collapsed in Kordin.

He said he was dismayed that there are a number of people who put the party which took them for a ride before their own interests and those of their children.

But he said he was proud to have listened to his conscience and that he had always fought for the interests of the Gzira people. “My principles come before the party and everyone else,” he said, thanking the 562 Gzira residents who gave him first preference.