Birkirkara gets a Nationalist mayor for another three months

Nationalist councillor Desirei Grech has again been elected interim Birkirkara mayor and will remain in the post for the next three months.

On Tuesday, the Birkirkara councillors voted for Grech to lead the council for the next three months.

A week earlier, the councillors failed to reach consensus on who should lead the council and become mayor.

PN councillor Desirei Grech had already served as an interim mayor following a vote last July.

In the local council election, no party obtained a majority in Birkirkara. The PN and PL elected six councillors each, and independent candidate Kaylocke Buhagiar obtained the seventh seat.

Buhagiar had been elected to the council on the Labour ticket in the 2019 local council election, but opted to contest independently in the 2024 vote.

The Labour councillors had been trying to broker a deal with Buhagiar in the hopes of securing a majority on the council. In this deal, Buhagiar was offered the position of mayor for a period of two and a half years, after which a Labour Party mayor would take over.

However, Labour councillor Yana Debono Grech issued a statement on Monday saying Buhagiar rejected the deal, and wanted to be mayor for the whole five years.