First nominations for MEP casual elections

The first nominations for the three vacant European Parliament seats were submitted today with Labour candidates Claudette Abela Baldacchino and Steve Borg vying for the two seats vacated by deputy Prime Minister Louis Grech and finance minister Edward Scicluna.

Nationalist candidate Roberta Metsola Tedesco-Triccas was the first person to submit a nomination for the casual election to fill in Nationalist deputy leader Simon Busuttil's seat.

The nominations close on Monday.

The two Labour MEP seats vacated by Grech and Scicluna could be filled by Marlene Mizzi, Maria Camilleri, Claudette Abela Baldacchino and Sharon Ellul Bonnici, who all fared well in the 2009 election.

However, other candidates could throw their hat into the ring, with the newly-appointed foreign affairs ministry's director of communications Glenn Bedingfield, and Steve Borg, Kirill Micallef Stafrace and Joseph Zammit all in the running.

Abela Baldacchino, former Qrendi deputy mayor, was also the vice-president of the Local Councils Association, which has been investigated by the EU's anti-fraud agency OLAF over the fraud of some €96,000 in travel expenses. The case, which emboiled all the LCA's members, is the subject of a court case. The issue first came to light last year when OLAF noticed that a large number of airline tickets for which reimbursement had been sought, all cost the same.

Another candidate who could embarrass Labour is Sharon Ellul Bonici, who is the founding secretary-general of the European Alliance for Freedom, a eurosceptic pan-European party established in late 2010, and led by UKIP (UK Independence Party) MEP Godfrey Bloom.

Ellul Bonici is listed as the official secretary-general of the EAF, with the party's headquarters listed in Birkirkara. The alliance's vice-presidents are Philip Claeys and the French nationalist hardliner Marine Le Pen.

PN deputy leader Simon Busuttil's seat can be taken up by either Roberta Metsola Tedesco-Triccas or Marthese Portelli, who were among the top performers within the PN ranks besides the elected duo of Busuttil and David Casa.

With Portelli elected MP in the 9 March general elections, Tedesco-Triccas could be the only woman vying for the PN seat together with other candidates such as the GRTU chief Vince Farrugia, marine biologist Alan Deidun, former PN official and owner of the St Philip's Hospital Frank Portelli, Edward Demicoli, lawyer Alex Perici Calascione and former nurses' union boss Rudolph Cini.