Muscat and Grech submit ‘first-time’ general election nomination

Labour leader Joseph Muscat and deputy leader Louis Grech made an appearance at the Evans building on Wednesday evening to submit their nominations for the coming general election.

Like Nationalist Party deputy leader Simon Busuttil, who submitted his nomination on Monday, this will be the first time that both Muscat and Grech will be contesting the general election.

Also like Busuttil, both Muscat and Grech made their names in the European Parliament as MEPs before taking the plunge into the local political arena.

Nominations opened on Monday, and closed on Wednesday at 8pm.

Indeed, Wednesday was characterised by considerable speculation regarding whether maverick Nationalist MP would be casting his nomination and contesting the election independently of the MP.

Debono however seemed to put paid to the speculation when he posted a statement on his blog site saying that he would "most probably disappoint" the persons who have voiced their support for the MP and urged him to contest.

However, in comments to MaltaToday, Debono said: "On 9 March I will not be abstaining," while insisting that he does not imagine himself contesting elections on the PN ticket "since it has lost any kind of semblance to a political party."

Writing earlier in his personal blog, the dissenting Nationalist MP said he had to make a "tough decision", insisting he had reflected for long and given the question a lot of thought.