Casual elections for seats vacated by Frederick Azzopardi, Miriam Dalli

A casual election will be held next week to fill the seat vacated by Frederick Azzopardi on the 13th District, the Electoral Commission said today.

Azzopardi died last week but it is understood that the Commission was seeking legal advice on how the parliamentary vacancy should be filled.

The Nationalist MP was elected in the last general election on the basis of a corrective mechanism that awarded two extra seats to the PN, raising question marks as to whether the vacancy should be filled through a casual election.

In a statement released today, the Commission said that it was tasked by the President to hold a casual election on the 13th District. The President’s writ was published in the Government Gazette.

Nominations open tomorrow and close on Tuesday. The casual election will be held on 5 November at the Naxxar counting hall.

The PN has five other candidates on the Gozo district who were not elected and are eligible to contest the casual election. These are: Joseph Ellis, Ċensu Galea, Ryan Mercieca, Maria Portelli and Jason Zammit. Another candidate, on the PN list was Charles Polidano, who represented the Democratic Party.

European Parliament casual election

Cyrus Engerer is best-placed to replace Miriam Dalli in the European Parliament

At the same time, the Commission also announced that a casual election will be held to elect a replacement for Miriam Dalli in the European Parliament.

Dalli resigned her seat in Brussels to join the Maltese parliament.

The writ for the casual election was published in the Government Gazette and nominations will open tomorrow and close on Tuesday.

The casual election will also be held on 5 November but this will be in electronic format and will be held at the Commission's headquarters at Evans Building in Valletta. The European Parliament election last year was the first exercise where vote-counting was done electronically. 

Cyrus Engerer is the Labour Party candidate best-placed to take Dalli’s seat in the EP having been the fifth in line after the party’s four elected MEPs.