Updated with Labour Party Press Statment sent at 16:53 today
Alternattiva Demokratika and the Labour Party have denounced a 2011 directive from the Office of the Prime Minister, which forces prospective local council candidates to take 15 days' special unpaid leave if they are to contest in the 10 March council elections.
The Office of the Prime Minister issued a directive in February 2011 to the civil service that ordered any prospective election candidates must take special unpaid leave for 15 days if they are to contest in local council elections.
"Most people I spoke to, from all political parties, were not even aware of the original directive issued. Even Nationalist Party mayors didn't know about it," Alternattiva Demokratika's secretary-general Ralph Cassar told MaltaToday.
Reacting to the directive, PL also expressed concern and urged the Nationalist Party to revise the regulation since it was putting civil service workers at a disadvantage.
"GonziPN needs to revise the regulation because this means that persons who will be contesting in these elections will have to sacrifice their pay to provide a service to the community and put these workers at a disadvantage," the PL said in a statement this afternoon.
The PL also said that the directive would discourage more persons from actively participating in local politics. "This action by GonziPN goes against the spirit in which the local councils were originally established and the concept of community service by its members."
"GonziPN needs to revise the position being taken and see that persons are in no way penalised for offering their services to the locality," the PL said.
Cassar said this directive would mean that many candidates would not be in a position to contest in the local elections.
"I had sent the public administration human resources department an email requesting for clarification of the directive. The directive was originally only applicable for general and European election candidates, but was extended to local council candidates," Cassar told MaltaToday.
In a reply to Cassar, the director of the public administration human resources office (Pahro) Maria Dolores Ellul said that public officers who do not occupy politically restricted positions in the civil service "have the option to apply for special unpaid leave to contest in local council elections."
Referring to prospective candidates, Ellul said that they "have no option but to take at least 15 days' special unpaid leave covering the period during which voting takes place and two days following the election results are called".
Cassar also said that even if candidates have remaining paid leave available to them, the directive forces candidates to take unpaid leave while contesting.
"It is absurd that the OPM is penalising local candidates for offering to give a voluntary service to their locality," AD Chairperson Michael Briguglio said.
Ellul also added that it was essential that the general public's confidence in the public service remained impartial and should not be affected in any way. "It was for this reason that the need to refrain public officials contesting in local council elections from performing official duties during the final phases of the electoral campaign by taking a period of special unpaid leave."