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All 476 local council seats in 68 localities. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 The colours of the map indicate the party that achieved a plurality of votes, but not necessarily control of a council. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Local council elections are to be held in Malta and Gozo on 8 June 2024, in tandem with the European Parliament elections. [1] This shall be the second time that all local councils of Malta are elected simultaneously in a single election, following the 2015 reform abolishing the old system of half-council elections. [2]
The Labour Party won an absolute majority of 268 local council seats and 48 mayoralties in the 2019 local elections, swiping control of several village councils from the Nationalist Party in a wave of electoral successes for said PL, most significant of all being the flip of Siġġiewi from PN to PL. [3] Since the 2019 election, a firm Labour bloc in the central-south regions of Malta can be found. [4]
Only two independents were elected in two councils in Malta and Gozo. Steven Zammit Lupi was elected to the Żebbuġ local council in Malta, [5] and Nicky Saliba, ex-PN mayor of Żebbuġ in Gozo, was elected as an independent and managed to deadlock the council there, finally resulting in his re-election as mayor. [6] Malta uses the single transferable vote system in all elections.
Several parties have been founded since 2019.
Floriana First (Maltese: Floriana I-Ewwel), and Għarb First (Maltese: Għarb l-Ewwel), both unrelated localist parties, were registered immediately after the election having previously participated as ad hoc groups. The leaders are Nigel Holland and David Apap Agius respectively.
The People's Party (Maltese: Partit Popolari), a right-wing conservative anti-immigration party, was founded sometime around the summer of 2021 by Mr. Paul Salomone, starting the registration process with the Electoral Commission in June. [7] It held its first founding press conference in November 2020. [8] It is considered to have replaced the since-2020 inactive Moviment Patrijotti Maltin even if they are unrelated.
Alleanza Bidla (which still is registered with the Electoral Commission) de-facto reformed as ABBA party by AB leader Ivan Grech Mintoff, nephew of ex-Prime Minister Dominic Mintoff. ABBA party is a right-wing, Christian party which is closely associated by Protestant-Pentecostalist evangelical movement River of Love. [9] [10]
The Democratic Alternative, and Marlene Farrugia's Democratic Party, performed abysmally in the previous election, with AD garnering only 1977 first-preference votes (0.77%) around Malta and Gozo and losing its only local council seat in Attard held by party secretary Ralph Cassar, and PD garnering only 555 first-preference votes (0.21%), gaining no seats. Both parties would merge under the new name 'AD+PD' (pronounced and frequently rendered ADPD), retaining Carmel Cacopardo as chairman of the party and Ralph Cassar as secretarv-general. [11] [12] AD+PD's current chairwoman is Sandra Gauci since her election on 27 May 2023. [13]
The Electoral Commission of Malta is obliged to update and publish an electoral register in every election. The ECM published said electoral register on 31 March 2023. Voting age is 16 for all elections in Malta. Maltese, and UK-nationals that satisfy the voting age and necessary residency requirements are eligible to vote in these local council elections. [14]
Since and before 2019, there has been much criticism by the Nationalist opposition and civil society groups that Malta and Gozo local council's powers have, under a Labour Party administration, been watered down and concentrated more on Castille. [15] A year before, the National Audit Office expressed its anger at an "alarming situation" where fifteen local councils and one regional council failed to submit their audited financial statements in November 2022. [16]
On 8 August 2023, Ministry for Local Government launched a "national strategic vision" for Local Councils and government in Malta and Gozo. This would aim to strengthen the role of Police and the environment locally. [17]
On 11 October 2023, the Minister for Local Government Owen Bonniċi and Parliamentary Secretary Alison Żerafa Civelli unveiled a legislative process through a bill amending the Local Government Act permitting 16-17 year olds to be elected as mayors and deputy mayors of the Maltese local councils. [18] It was approved by Cabinet on the same day. [19] This was however not approved by an overwhelming majority of the Maltese population, and was very much derided on social media. A Times of Malta poll found that 97% of responders did not agree with the draft legislation. [20] The idea was not really conceived by PL, as PN had proposed the exact same in a December manifesto on local government published by the party in December 2022. [21] [22]
If these plans are put to effect, Malta would be the first country in the EU (and the European continent) to lower the minimum age required to serve as mayor. [23]
A de-facto sanitary crisis in various localities around Malta and Gozo has been brought to the attention of various media press in the last year, with mayors such as Swieqi's Noel Muscat and Sliema's John Pillow decrying an "uncontrollable" and "unbearable" garbage problem with the latter even resorting to naming and shaming. [24] [25] The Nationalist Party had also stated in a press conference that "councils are being faced by “immense pressure” without having any control over the situation, which is in turn affecting the country’s reputation". Nationalist MP Eve Borg Bonello posted a Facebook video calling Energy Minister Miriam Dalli a "pseudo green warrior who recently faced a national embarrassment". [26]
On 4 September 2023, Labour Party television channel ONE TV claimed through an "exclusive report" to have revealed a private recording of a voice message sent by Pillow to a Sliema resident in the advent of a Nationalist Party press conference one the same subject, where according to ONE, Pillow claimed he left garbage uncollected on purpose to show journalists the state of his town to the media in the press conference. [27] Pillow rebutted the report as maniputive, calling it out as a "henious lie" in a Facebook post, playing in public the concerned voice message recording in full. [28] [29]
Several mayors, local councils, and even minority opposition within councils without the support of said council have protested and objected several development projects around Malta and Gozo.
The most popular and recent successful blocking of such development is in Gżira where Labour Party Mayor Conrad Borg Manché and the Gżira Local Council won an appeal case against the Lands Authority which granted back to the Council jurisdiction and control of the Yacht Marina Garden, as opposed to allowing the Authority to proceed with plans to relocation a petrol station to the garden. [30] On 8 October 2023, Borg Manché would resign from the Labour Party, citing according to him the party's departure from socialist principles. "The party is no longer a socialist party that fights for workers. That is why I had joined the party in the first place, and so this resignation is only natural.", he said. [31] [32] [33] [34]
In March 2023, a landmark ruling in Santa Luċija, Malta by Chief Judge Mark Chetcuti cancelled a Environment and Review Tribunal permit that proposed a 5-storey development which would have ruined the uniformity of a street containing only 2-storey houses. It is good to note that the Planning Authority had not approved this development proposal, and was only approved by the EPRT after an appeal lodged by the applicant. This appeal was again contested by Nationalist minority leader in the S. Luċija Local Council, Liam Sciberras and resident Michael Pule. In this case, the minority leader criticised Labour Party Mayor Charmaine St John and Vice-Mayor Frederick Cutajar who according to Sciberras, defended the developer instead of the resident objectors. [35] The Local Council, at first however, did object to the project. [36] The People's Party, in a statement also expressed its solidarity with both the residents and the local council of Santa Luċija. [37]
Another similar case is a 20-year battle against a Ħondoq ir-Rummien "megaproject" ended also successfully for the local populace and Qala mayor Paul Buttiġieġ. "The proposed project, with a total site area of over 103,000 square metres, was divided into several zones. It included a 110-bedroom hotel set on nine floors, 25 self-catering villas, 60 self-catering apartments, 200 multi-ownership residential units consisting of apartments, maisonettes and bungalows, over 1,200 underground car-parking spaces, a chapel, administration offices, shops and restaurants." [38]
In the Nigret area of Żurrieq, farmland is slated to become a residential area despite several objections. [39] Activism in this village has been particularly active, with the formation of the Għaqda Residenti taż-Żurrieq (English: Żurrieq Residents Group) as a local pressure group protesting and raising funds to challenge this development. [40] They eventually managed to raise enough money in August 2022 to take the Planning Authority to the courts over these plans, after the PA executive council also voted unanimously to allow procedure anyway of the developments. [41]
The Rabat (Malta) Local Council also objected to the construction of a farmhouse in the 'Għeriexem Valley' area. The primary reasons for this objection are that Wied Għeriexem is a buffer zone between Rabat and Mdina and that a permitted precedent might permit more developments in that area and that the finished building will not be able to be used for residential purposes, something that the law requires it to prove. [42] [43] The People's Party also released a statement supporting the local council and the Rabat residents, however also proposing that 'outside development zones' or ODZs be granted constitutional protection, meaning that construction in these areas would be constrained by a 2/3 vote in Parliament or in a referendum. [44]
Maltese courts on 24 May 2024 annulled the ID card residence registration of 99 'ghost voters' who illegally changed such voter registration address to unfinished and uninhabitable flat addresses in Siġġiewi following a successful lawsuit per illegaly registered voter by the Nationalist Party in opposition. [45] The legal battle involved 22 magistrates and took three weeks. This led to housing minister Roderick Galdes being disparagingly titled 'Electoral Fraud Minister' by Opposition-affiliated media NET . [46] This heavily implicates that the Labour Party stood to benefit from such voter address registration changes with also a win for said Labour Party further consolidated as such. [47]
| Locality [48] | Seats in: | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 2024 | ||
 Pietà | 5 | 7 |  2 |
 Għaxaq | |||
 Xagħra (Gozo) | |||
 Ħamrun | 7 | 9 | |
 Marsaskala | 9 | 11 | |
 Naxxar | |||
 San Ġwann | |||
 Cospicua (Bormla) | 7 | 5 |  2 |
From September 2023, the Nationalist Party confirmed with Catholic media Newsbook that it has approved 170 candidates for these elections. The Labour Party did not answer a similar question posed by Newsbook, while AD+PD and Volt confirmed that they will be participating in the election, but were not in the situation to provide information. [49] In October 2023 the PN said that they have more than 200 candidates.[ citation needed ] PP and ABBA were not asked.
On 29 April 2024, with the closing of the nomination period for candidates, the Electoral Commission [50] announced that the Labour Party would be fielding 381 candidates (down 19 from last election), the Nationalist Party would be fielding 293 candidates (down 4), AD+PD 7 candidates (down from 16 in 2019), and the People's Party 4 candidates. Residenti Beltin (English: Valletta Residents) and Floriana First (down 1) shall each field a candidate, and 19 independent candidates (up from 12) shall contest seats. Volt Malta failed to follow in its plan to contest these elections and did not field any candidates. ABBA party did not field candidates nor express any intent to contest these elections.
 2019 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Current Seats | Seats contested in this election | |
| Partit Laburista | 267 / 462 | 381 / 476 | |
| Partit Nazzjonalista | 190 / 462 | 293 / 476 | |
| Għarb l-Ewwel | 2 / 462 | 4 / 476 | |
| AD+PD | New | 7 / 476 | |
| Partit Popolari | 4 / 476 | ||
| Floriana l-Ewwel | 1 / 476 | ||
| Residenti Beltin | 1 / 476 | ||
| Volt Malta | Participation intended and initially confirmed, however failed to field candidacies. | ||
| Independents | 3 / 462 | 19 / 476 | |
| Party | First-preference votes | Seats | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quantity | % | /- | Quantity | +/- | ||
| Partit Laburista | TBD | TBD | 1 | TBD | ||
| Partit Nazzjonalista | 4 | |||||
| AD+PD | TBD | |||||
| Partit Popolari | ||||||
| Għarb l-Ewwel | ||||||
| Floriana l-Ewwel | ||||||
| Residenti Beltin | ||||||
| Independents | ||||||
| Total: | 100.00 | 476 | 14 | |||
The politics of Malta takes place within a framework of a parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the president of Malta is the constitutional head of state. Executive authority is vested in the president of Malta, with the general direction and control of the Government of Malta remaining with the prime minister of Malta, who is the head of government and the cabinet. Legislative power is vested in the Parliament of Malta, which consists of the president of Malta and the unicameral House of Representatives of Malta with the speaker as the presiding officer of the legislative body. Judicial power remains with the chief justice and the judiciary of Malta. Since independence, the party electoral system has been dominated by the Christian democratic Nationalist Party and the social democratic Labour Party.
Since June 30, 1993, Malta has been subdivided into 68 localities, governed by local councils, Maltese: kunsilli lokali, meaning municipalities or borough, and the considered by the Maltese as the equivalent to a basic village or towns, where appropriate. These form the most basic form of local government and there are no intermediate levels between it and the national level. The levels of the 6 districts and of the 5 regions serve statistical purposes.
The Nationalist Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in Malta, along with the Labour Party.
Local elections were held in 22 localities in Malta on 10 March 2007. The last round of elections held in 2004, on the same day of the national election for the Maltese Members for the European Parliament (MEPs). Approximately 68% of the eligible voters turned up on election day. With the locality of Safi with the highest percentage (86%); and the locality of Swieqi with the lowest percentage (53%). The largest locality was that of Mosta and the smallest one was that of San Lawrenz, Gozo.
Local elections were held in Malta on 8 March 2008, the same day of the general election. This year, the election was held in 23 of the 68 Maltese localities. These 23 localities are: Valletta, Senglea, Żebbuġ, Żejtun, Balzan, Dingli, Fontana, Għajnsielem, Għasri, Iklin, Kirkop, Marsa, Mellieħa, Mqabba, Nadur, Pembroke, Qrendi, San Ġiljan, San Pawl il-Baħar, Santa Venera, Ta' Xbiex, Xewkija and Żurrieq. A separate local election was held on 24 May in Mtarfa, after the previous council was dissolved a monthly earlier. Of the candidates that ran for the Mtarfa May election, in which 3 councillors were elected for the Nationalist Party while 2 councillors were elected for the Malta Labour Party (MLP).
Alex Perici Calascione is a Maltese politician and lawyer who currently serves as the deputy leader of the Nationalist Party (PN). He previously served as President of the party's Executive Committee until 2020, and as party treasurer until 2017.
Local elections were held in Malta on 6 June 2009, the same day of the European elections. The elections were held in 23 of the 68 Maltese localities. These 23 localities are: Imdina, Bormla, Rabat, Gozo, Żabbar, Birkirkara, Fgura, Gudja, Għarb, Għaxaq, Kalkara, Lija, Marsaskala, Mġarr, Msida, Imtarfa, Naxxar, Pietà, Malta, Rabat, Malta, San Ġwann, Sannat, Tas-Sliema, Tarxien, and Xgħajra.
Cyrus Engerer is a Maltese Member of European Parliament representing the Labour Party. A gay rights activist, he was the leading spokesperson for the Yes campaign at the 2011 Maltese divorce referendum. In 2021 he was tasked with negotiating the European Parliaments historic resolution on the declaration of the European Union as an LGBTQ Freedom zone, in reaction to the establishment of so called "LGBT-Free zones" in Poland. Engerer later went on to write the European Parliaments resolution which condemned the laws in Hungary which effectively banned "LGBT propaganda" in the vicinity of schools. From 2014 till 2019 Engerer was the Prime Minister's special envoy to the European Union. He was elected as a Member of the European Parliament in November 2020. After he joined the Labour Party the Police of Malta opened an investigation against him, leading to his father's arrest, the opening of a court case against him on spreading pornography and the arrest of his mother on election day. He himself was convicted for spreading revenge porn and received a suspended two years term imprisonment. He is the partner of Partit Laburista's Member of Parliament Randolph De Battista.
The Democratic Party was a centrist to centre-left political party in Malta. It was founded in 2016 after a split from the Labour Party. It elected Malta's first two third party MPs for the first time since the country's Independence. In August 2020 the party announced an agreement to merge with the green Democratic Alternative party to form a new party called AD+PD. The merger was conducted on 17 October 2020.
Marlene Farrugia is a Maltese former Member of Parliament and former leader of the Democratic Party. Previously she had been a member of the Nationalist Party, with whom she contested the General Elections in 1996 and 1998, and the Labour Party, with whom she was elected in 2008 and 2013, before resigning in 2015. She formed the Democratic Party in 2016, but left it in 2019.
General elections were held in Malta on 26 March 2022 to elect all members of the House of Representatives.
The 2019 European Parliament election was held in Malta on 25 May 2019. 8 different political parties took part in the election, of which, only 2 won seats in the European Parliament; the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party, with 4 and 2 seats respectively.
Bernard Grech is a Maltese politician and lawyer who has been the leader of the Nationalist Party and the Leader of the Opposition since 2020.
Volt Malta is a political party in Malta and the Maltese branch of Volt Europa, a Eurofederalist and progressive pan-European political party and movement, which advocates for greater European cooperation across Europe.
The People's Party, also erroneously called by Maltese media as Popular Party, is a conservative political party in Malta. It was founded in July 2020 and is currently headed by Paul Salomone. The party has never obtained any seats in local councils or the Maltese parliament. It does not contest European elections. It is considered right-wing to far-right by certain journalists and portals, however the party protests against the latter characterisation.
Rebekah Borg is a Maltese Politician and Engineer, currently serving as the Shadow Minister for the Environment. She previously served as the Shadow Minister for Lands and Consumer Rights. She also serves as a Member of Parliament in the Parliament of Malta.
Edwin Vassallo is a Maltese politician and businessman formerly from the Nationalist Party who served as a member of the Parliament of Malta from 1996 to 2022. He was elected to Parliament in the 1996 Maltese general election, and took office on 5 December 1996, and would serve until 20 February 2022 when Parliament dissolved before the 2022 elections. Vassallo was defeated in 2022 elections. Vassallo served as a Parliamentary Secretary in various capacities under the premierships of Eddie Fenech Adami and Lawrence Gonzi from 1998 until 2008. He also served as the mayor of Mosta from 2015 to 2016. Vassallo was also a member of the Parliamentary Petitions Committee in the Thirteenth Legislature from 2017 until 2022.
Darren Carabott is a Maltese politician serving as a Member of Parliament and as the President of Public Accounts Committee in the Parliament of Malta since March 2022.
Alex Borg is a lawyer and Maltese Member of Parliament. In April 2022, he was appointed shadow minister for Gozo.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)Nationalist Party says that Labour Party tried to steal Siggiewi local council through voter fraud. - (PN General Secretary Michael) Piccinino said that the Nationalist Party is being careful to make sure that the election process is just, clean, and transparent. He continued that the PN opened these cases to ensure that the electoral registry is one which reflects reality. He added that everything which the government has done in this situation deserves to be condemned, and that the PL tried to steal the Siggiewi local council.
| General elections | |
|---|---|
| European elections | |
| Local elections | |
| Referendums | |
See also: Presidential elections | |
