[WATCH] Cyrus Engerer wins MEP seat in casual election for Miriam Dalli seat

Cyrus Engerer will become Malta’s sixth MEP after the casual election to fill Miriam Dalli’s vacated MEP seat was held.

Seven candidates showed interest in the post.

Dalli resigned from her Brussels post in favour of a seat in the Maltese parliament last month.

Engerer obtained 17,798 votes after all other candidates were eliminated. The runner-up was former l-Orizzont editor and OPM aide Josef Caruana with 15,683 votes.

The first to be eliminated was the economist Robert Micallef, with 1,396 votes; then OPM staff member and one-time Azzjoni Nazzjonali politician Mary Gauci with 1,840; Bank of Valletta banker James Grech with 2,102 votes; choreographer Felix Busuttil with 4,844 votes; and foreign ministry legal executive Lorna Vassallo with 7,191 votes.

Engerer is a graduate of the University of Malta, and holds a Masters in European politics from the European College, Belgium. Between 2014 and 2019 he served as the Prime Minister’s representative and sherpa at the European Council, leading negotiations during the Maltese presidency of the Council. He has been a consultant to the environment minister since January 2020. As an activist, Engerer has been a prominent catalyst in Labour’s civil liberties agenda.

Like last year’s European Parliament election, the casual election was carried out electronically. 

The seat was contested by Felix Busuttil Galea, Josef Caruana, Cyrus Engerer, Mary Gauci, James Grech, Robert Micallef and Lorna Vassallo.

Cyrus Engerer had inherited 2,200 votes from Dalli when she got elected on the first count in the last MEP election, making Engerer among the better-placed candidates to take the seat.