Mount Carmel CEO favourite to fill in Leo Brincat's seat

Labour candidate and former mayor of Msida, Clifton Grima is the frontrunner in the race to fill in the Parliamentary seat set to be vacated by  Leo Brincat, who was today named as Malta’s candidate for the European Court of Auditors.

The 32-year-old lawyer was appointed CEO of Mount Carmel Hospital a few months after the 2013 election.

Grima had garnered a respectable 1,646 first count votes and was the penultimate candidate to be eliminated from Labour’s list on the ninth electoral district. .

The last candidate to be eliminated was Michael Falzon, who was subsequently elected in the casual election held in the tenth district.

Other Labour candidates who had contested the 2013 election on the Labour ticket include Simon Saliba who had won 678 first count votes, Nikita Zammit Alamango, Sigmund Mifsud, Manuel Micallef, Martin Ellul and Anthony Mifsud Bonnici.

If Leo Brincat is sucessfully appointed auditor, a casual election will be held 10 days after he vacates his seat.

Candidates must achieve 50% of the quota established in the election. The quota of the ninth district in 2013 was 3,834, meaning that in order to get elected a candidate must garner 1,917 votes in a casual election.

In the remote eventuality that nobody reaches the quota or nobody submits a nomination, then Labour will co-opt somebody to fill in Brincat's seat.