A total of 15 seats in Parliament are up for grabs in the next couple of weeks through the casual election process, with a myriad of candidates who served as MPs during the last legislature scrambling to retain their seat in Parliament.

Casual elections are triggered when a candidate is elected in two districts. That candidate will have to vacate one of their seats, thereby triggering a casual election which will allow for an unelected candidate from that district to be elected.

It can be an unpredictable contest: the first count votes that an unelected candidate achieved in the main election mean absolutely nothing in a casual election.  This is because the person who will fill the vacant seat is decided based on the preferences indicated in the first count votes given to the candidate who has vacated that seat.

With eight Labour Party seats and seven Nationalist Party seats up for grabs, there are a number of MPs who were in Parliament during last legislature - and even two who were Parliamentary Secretaries in the last Cabinet - who are relying on this process in order to return to those plush green seats in Valletta for the next five years.

Casual elections will take place across the next two weeks: the election for the vacant PL seats will take place on Friday 12 June, and the election for the vacant PN seats will take place the week after that on an as yet unconfirmed date.

After that, the gender corrective mechanism will be administered to elect 12 more MPs: six women from the PL and six women from the PN.

The make-up of Malta's Parliament will then be complete.  Till then, The Malta Independent analyses who the front-runners for each casual election may be.

Eight PL seats up for grabs as past MPs scrambled to retain their seat

There are a total of eight PL seats which are up for grabs via casual elections, and most districts feature MPs from the past legislature who are scrambling to retain their seat in Parliament.

Robert Abela will be ceding his seat in District 2, where he was elected 11,839 votes.  Because he exceeded the district quota of 3,978 votes by so much, it means we can have a semi-clear picture of who may be elected in his stead.

Out of the PL's 16 candidates on this district, those elected together with Abela were Clyde Caruana, Alison Zerafa Civelli, and Glenn Bedingfield.  Byron Camilleri and Carmelo Abela, who were on this district, were elected from other districts and so won't be eligible in this casual election.

That leaves 10 candidates who are in the running.  Abela's vote inheritance pattern seems to suggest that the front-runners may be James Grech, Rodrick Zerafa, and Clint Azzopardi Flores.

Zerafa, a first time candidate from Zabbar and a government CEO, inherited 371 votes from the Prime Minister, while Grech, who is a banker, had just missed out on being elected in 2022, inherited 360 votes.  Azzopardi Flores, a PL MEP candidate from 2024, inherited 265 votes.

The lion's share of Abela's votes however initially went to the candidates who were ultimately elected, so there is still a question mark over how they might be inherited.

Chris Fearne will be vacating his seat on District 3. Fearne was joined by Chris Bonett, Owen Bonnici, and Carmelo Abela in Parliament from this district, but two sitting MPs missed out: Andy Ellul and Ray Abela.

Ellul was the highest profile candidate to miss out, as he was a member of Cabinet.  Abela was elected from this district in 2022, but via a casual election.

They are the two front-runners to take up Fearne's seat.  Ellul was more popular on first count votes as he had 1,663 votes compared to Abela's 999 votes - but first count votes count for nothing in this election.

PL Deputy Leader Ian Borg will be vacating his seat on District 7, where there are only three possible candidates who can replace him in a casual election.

These are former PL Whip Naomi Cachia, and new candidates Samantha Pace Gasan and Omar Rababah.  Rababah has already said that he would not be contesting any casual elections, leaving the contest between Cachia and Pace Gasan.

Neither of them are guaranteed a seat through the gender corrective mechanism right now, but Cachia would be next in line should one of the top six women be elected via a casual election elsewhere - which is a distinct possibility.

Cachia was the stronger candidate out of the two: she also inherited 159 votes from Fearne over the 112 that Pace Gasan inherited.

Finance Minister Clyde Caruana will vacate his seat on District 8 which is likely to offer a route into Parliament to either Alex Muscat or Ramona Attard.

Both were MPs last term, although this is the first time that Attard is contesting an election as she had been co-opted into Parliament during the last legislature.

Attard inherited 232 votes from Caruana, while Muscat inherited 208 votes from him.  Ironically, they both inherited more votes from the Finance Minister than John Grech, who was eventually elected.

Attard is one of the six female PL candidates currently guaranteed a seat in Parliament via the gender corrective mechanism.  She may opt against contesting the casual election in order to give a route to Muscat back into Parliament.

Clifton Grima and Michael Falzon were both elected from Districts 9 and 10, and both will be vacating their seats on District 9.

There are three likely front runners for these two seats: former Parliamentary Secretary Rebecca Buttigieg - another Cabinet member who didn't make the cut this year - together with Clint Azzopardi Flores and Gharghur mayor Mariah Meli.

Buttigieg was considerably more popular than both of her counterparts, and she is already guaranteed a seat via the gender quota regardless.  Azzopardi Flores also has a chance of being elected in District 2 - if he is, that would make life far easier for Meli, who achieved the least first count votes out of the three.

A casual election which is likely to be hotly contested will be for Miriam Dalli's seat on District 11.  The PL only had five candidates here, with Dalli and Anthony Agius Decelis being elected.  Agius Decelies just missed out on being elected in 2022 by a handful of inherited votes, and he then lost the subsequent casual election. 

This time those worries fall onto Alex Muscat and Romilda Zarb - both sitting MPs who were not re-elected.  Muscat was the PL's third most popular candidate with 1,359 first count votes, followed by new candidate Francesca Zarb who had 978 first count votes, and then Zarb who had 742 votes to her name.

But 2022 proved that this means very little: back then Agius Decelis had 2,393 first count votes compared to Zarb's 985 - yet Zarb won the subsequent casual election between the two, which was also to fill Dalli's vacated seat, by almost 400 votes.  She will hope for a repeat to be on the cards.

The final seat on offer for the PL is Jonathan Attard's District 12 seat.  This too promises to be a hotly contested affair, with several realistic candidates in with a shot.

The top three contenders are likely to be former MPs Franco Mercieca and Deborah Schembri - who both returned to the ballot sheets after an absence of several years this year - and young Carlos Zarb.

Mercieca was the most popular candidate in terms of first count voters, followed by Zarb, and then Schembri.  Schembri would make it to Parliament via the gender quota should two women currently in the PL's top seven women be elected.

Romilda Zarb and Naomi Cachia also contested on this district, but they are likely to perform better in their home district casual elections.

The PL's casual elections will take place on Friday 12 June.

Seven PN seats up for grabs as party finds creative solution for Alex Borg's Gozo problem

Seven PN seats will be vacated in order for casual elections to take place, offering a lifeline to several MPs who did not make the cut last Saturday.

While in the PL's case it is the party executive which chooses which seats are vacated, the decision in the PN is left up to a formula stipulated within the party's statute.  The statute states 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.

It was a notion put forward to avoid the party interfering in the process and having suggestions of favouritism thrown at it, but it has also created something of a headache for the party.

That, however, created something of a headache for Alex Borg.  He was elected on Districts 12 and 13, and as a Gozitan - incidentally the PN's first Gozitan leader since Enrico - Borg wanted to retain his seat in Gozo (District 13) and therefore relinquish his seat in District 12.

The problem was, however, that Borg achieved a higher percentage of first count votes vis-a-vis the district quota in District 12.  There, Borg achieved 9,614 votes which is 275.55% of the quota.  In Gozo, he achieved 12,211 votes which - while more in quantity - is 262.71% of the quota.

Theoretically, therefore, Borg should have vacated his seat in Gozo - but the party said that the rule in the statute does not apply to Borg because, being that he is the party leader, he is not considered to be a normal candidate.

If Borg did vacate his seat in Gozo, the PN had a unique opportunity to elect all five of its candidates on the district to Parliament.  Beppe Galea made it during the election, while Frank Anthony Tabone followed through the Constitutional Proportionality Mechanism.

That left Norma Camilleri and Luke Said as the two unelected candidates. Camilleri is guaranteed a seat in Parliament due the gender quota, so had she not contested the resulting casual election, it would have left Said uncontested and able to take a seat in Parliament as well.

With Borg vacating his seat on District 12, though, it is academic and the author of the party's electoral manifesto George Vital Zammit who would be the favourite to take up that vacant seat.

Zammit inherited almost double the number of votes from Borg as his closest competitors, who would be Joseph Grech and Charles Azzopardi.

Elsewhere, Stephen Spiteri will be vacating his seat on District 3.  Janice Abela Chetcuti would have been in line to win that casual election but she made it to Parliament via the Constitutional Proportionality Mechanism, therefore opening the road for the PN to elect a new MP here.

It could be a four-way contest, but the two front-runners are doctor and new candidate Ray Gatt, Marsascala minority leader John Baptist Camilleri, and Errol Cutajar.  Gatt had 932 first count votes, Camilleri had 793 first count votes, and Cutajar closely followed with 745.  New candidate Andrew Agius could be in with a shot, but was less popular than the aforementioned trio on the basis of first count votes - he polled at 540 votes.

The PN's surprise package Conrad Borg Manche will be vacating his seat in District 5, creating a casual election which is likely the easiest to predict across the board.  Stanley Zammit is almost certain to return to Parliament - he had 2,407 first count votes to his name, and while that counts for nothing, the next closest candidate was Stefan Caruana with just 252 votes.

Both PN MPs elected on District 7 - Adrian Delia and Rebekah Borg - will then be vacating their seats.  This opens the path for both Ian Mario Vassallo (better known as il-Hagi) and Charles Azzopardi to return to Parliament.  Vassallo was unlucky not to make it to Parliament during the election: he had 352 more first count votes than Borg did, but vote inheritance eventually pushed Borg ahead.

The final two seats on offer via a casual election will be Joe Giglio and Mark Anthony Sammut's District 10 seats.

The PN had 16 candidates on the ballot sheet in this district, and votes were spread quite evenly, meaning that it is a toss-up as to who may be elected.

Frontrunners are likely Graham Bencini, Albert Buttigieg, and Graziella Attard Previ who were all MPs during the last legislature.  Attard Previ is guaranteed a place in Parliament via the gender quota, so it will be interesting to see whether she contests these casual elections in the first place.

The PN's casual elections are likely to take place next week.