Casual election to fill Silvio Zammit's vacant seat on Monday

The casual election to fill in the vacant seat on the Sliema Local Council will be held on Monday 29 October at noon.

Two candidates have submitted their nomination for the election which could establish who will replace former deputy-mayor Silvio Zammit, who resigned from the council following the revelation of his involvement in John Dalli's resignation as European Commissioner.

Antoinette Castaldi Paris and Philip Andrew Ransley will be vying for Zammit's seat. Another unelected candidate, Nicholai Grech has not submitted his nomination.

In order to win the seat, one of the two candidates must obtain 259 votes, which is half the quota obtained by Zammit in March. If none of the candidates obtains half the quota, the candidate with fewer votes will be dropped and any remaining preferences will be added to the other candidate's tally.

If the remaining candidate still does not reach the 259 mark, then the Nationalist Party will be forced to co-opt a person of its choice on the council. 

This is the second casual election in six months on the Sliema council following the election held in March.

In April, John Pillow was elected in a casual election to fill the Sliema council seat vacated by another elected Nationalist Party candidate Julian Galea.

Galea resigned on 15 March, just four days after his election following the leak of a tape in which Valletta restaurant owner Julian Galea was heard saying that he suffered from a "phobia of Labourites,"  and claimed he paid them less than their Nationalist co-workers.

He was immediately forced to issue a public apology by the PN on the eve of the election. The resignation of Galea coincided with a MaltaToday probe over illegalities in Galea's snack bar in Valletta. The investigation looked into the MEPA permit and Malta Tourism Authority licence held by the snack bar in St John's Street, Valletta which Galea runs. 

The existing council's mandate expires in March 2013, following the dissolution of the council in February. The ill-fated Sliema council was dissolved following a series of investigations that led to the prosecution of former mayor Nikki Dimech and two other councillors.