At least five candidates seek to take Comodini Cachia’s seat in the European Parliament

Only Stefano Mallia and Kevin Plumpton rule out intention to submit their nomination for the PN MEP casual election

The standard monthly payment for all MEPs is €7,957
The standard monthly payment for all MEPs is €7,957

MP Francis Zammit Dimech, Ray Bugeja, Norman Vella, Jonathan Shaw and Helga Ellul will all be submitting their nomination in the casual election for the European Parliament seat vacated by Therese Comodini Cachia, who is now a member of the Maltese parliament.

All five have confirmed with MaltaToday that they will be submitting their nomination. They all argued that their candidature was still valid.

Shaw told MaltaToday: “In my case chances or being elected are practically impossible. Yet, I will submit my nomination as a sign of continuity to my candidature in the MEP election and also as an acknowledgement to those who had voted for me.”

Both Kevin Plumpton and Stefano Mallia said they will not be throwing their hat in the ring again. Mallia said: “No I will not. Since then I have taken on a number of other commitments and responsibilities which I need to respect. I also represent Malta’s employer bodies on the European Economic and Social Committee in Brussels which I would like to continue doing to the best of my ability.”

On his part, Gozitan candidate Kevin Cutajar said that he had not yet decided.

Zammit Dimech is considered to be the favourite to win the casual election having garnered 8,660 first preference votes. However, everything depends on how people voted on Comodini Cachia’s ballot sheet as it is her packet of 29,580 votes that will be opened and distributed amongst the candidates according to the voters’ preference.

Comodini Cachia has reluctantly vacated her seat in Brussels, having first told voters that would not relinquish her seat in Malta to stay on as MEP, claiming her mission will be “to rebuild Malta’s reputation abroad”.

The human rights lawyer was elected on eighth district with 4,244 votes on the 22nd count.

But after the controversial decision raised the ire of PN voters, Comodini Cachia said she had decided to choose Malta.