Sliema council to be dissolved

The ministry for justice and parliamentary affairs has decided to dissolve the Sliema local council, before a 25 January deadline to have the council included in next March's local council elections.

Citing unresolved differences between councillors, the government has decided the council will have to be re-elected for one year, and then be re-elected for its three-year administration in March 2013.

But Sliema's deputy mayor Cyrus Engerer, an independent councillor who left the Nationalist Party and joined Labour, says the government is dissolving the council because it has lost its Nationalist majority.

Six Labour and Nationalist councillors relinquished their party affiliations last year to form an independent bloc, and robbing the Nationalists' majority of nine out of 11 councillors, whittling down PN councillors to three.

"The PN is trying to keep its power in Sliema by dissolving the council because it has no majority, and it needs to reconstitute it so that it can dish out favours and carry out its clientelist strategy ahead of the general elections," Engerer said of the locality, which forms part of the staunch Nationalist stronghold that returns four MPs out of five for the party during general elections.

Engerer denied that the council was unable to function. "We have our differences as do both parties in the House... it's normal. In 2011, the majority of all decisions were unanimous. The reason the council is being dissolved is because the independent bloc is not agreeing with the three PN councillors."

The PN representation is made up of Mayor Johanna Gonzi, and councillors Julian Galea and Edward Cuschieri.

Gonzi had abstained on a motion on whether the council should seek a fresh mandate, and was only supported by Galea and Cuschieri.

"I abstained because I was elected to execute the people's mandate and I feel I cannot comment on whether it has to be dissolved. It is not my decision to take," Gonzi said, who told MaltaToday she was not yet informed of the government's decision yet.

But she said the council had experienced various differences recently, citing as an example the fact that even agreeing on the council meeting's minutes takes hours because discussion is bogged down in petty arguments. "It is certainly not a normal way of conducting affairs in a local council," Gonzi said. "Something had to happen."

The independent councillors are former PN members Cyrus Engerer, Sandra Camilleri, Patrick Pace, Yves Calì, Nikki Dimech and former Labour member Martin Debono. The Labour councillors are Maryanne Aquilina and Nikolai Gauci.