A number of candidates elected to Parliament in two districts during the 2026 general election will be required to relinquish one of their seats, setting in motion a series of casual elections to fill the resulting vacancies.
Under Malta's electoral system, candidates may contest up to two districts and might be elected to both. However, they may only retain one parliamentary seat, with the vacated seat subsequently filled through a casual election.
Labour Party candidates elected in two districts were Prime Minister Robert Abela (Districts 2 and 5), Clyde Caruana (Districts 2 and 8), Chris Fearne (Districts 3 and 4), Jonathan Attard (Districts 4 and 12), Miriam Dalli (Districts 5 and 11), Ian Borg (Districts 6 and 7), Clifton Grima (Districts 9 and 10), and Michael Falzon (Districts 9 and 10).
The Nationalist Party also saw several candidates elected in two districts. These were Stephen Spiteri (Districts 2 and 3), Mark Anthony Sammut (Districts 4 and 10), Conrad Borg Manche (Districts 5 and 10), Adrian Delia (Districts 7 and 8), Rebekah Borg (Districts 7 and 11), Joe Giglio (Districts 9 and 10), and Alex Borg (Districts 12 and 13).
The Nationalist Party's statute stipulates that candidates elected from two districts must relinquish the seat in the district where they obtained the lower number of first count votes as a percentage of the respective district quota.
As a result, Stephen Spiteri will vacate his seat in the 3rd district, Mark Anthony Sammut his seat in the 10th district, Conrad Borg Manche his seat in the 5th district, Adrian Delia his seat in the 7th district, Rebekah Borg her seat in the 7th district, Joe Giglio his seat in the 10th district, and Alex Borg his seat in the 13th district.
In contrast, the Labour Party's executive will determine which seats are to be relinquished by the party's dual-district winners. Decisions are therefore still pending regarding which districts will become vacant in the cases of Abela, Caruana, Fearne, Attard, Dalli, Borg, Grima, and Falzon.
Once a seat is vacated, a casual election is held to determine the replacement MP. The process involves reopening the ballot papers of the candidate who relinquished the seat. Those ballots are then redistributed among the remaining candidates who contested the district, in accordance with Malta's Single Transferable Vote (STV) electoral system.
The casual election process is expected to determine the final composition of Parliament in the districts affected by the vacancies created by candidates elected in more than one constituency.
The process will take place over the course of the next couple of weeks.