Election Playbook: No MEP is a Love Island

MEPs 🤝 Love Island: We’re well into May now, and it’s important that you start thinking about who you’re going to vote for. Am I talking about the European election or Love Island? We’ll never know. But this unusual coincidence of voting processes means we’re going to be doing a lot more voting than we initially thought we would this month. If only we could vote in the European and local council elections through a handy app the same way we do for Love Island.

Pigs at the Central Bank: When we were told Peppa Pig is coming to Malta, we weren’t expecting an outing to the Central Bank. On Wednesday morning, PN MEP and candidate David Casa set up a banner and hung pig balloons outside the Central Bank, calling for its governor Edward Scicluna to resign. Scicluna is one of several people being accused of fraud in connection to the Vitals hospitals deal, and Casa thinks it's ridiculous to have a Central Bank governor accused of fraud. The Prime Minister has insisted he will not directly request Scicluna's resignation, despite the charges. 

Ghostbusters to the rescue: The Siġġiewi 99 'ghost voters' saga continues after a magistrate ordered police to investigate and identify the public officials and entities who she said 'manipulated' voters into changering their address to a Siġġiewi construction site ahead of the election. Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech ruled that these people were "taken advantage of and manipulated by people who were entrusted with looking after their interests and wellbeing". It's a pretty damning ruling, and the magistrate even ordered that the change in address be revoked and that the Electoral Commission review the electoral register to reflect this change. 

Propaganda-watch: Because candidate-watch was becoming too cumbersome. This week alone, Labour released three campaign videos while the PN published one. The latter plays out like a blockbuster trailer, with royalty-free tension music and glitch noises played over clips of abandoned hospital rooms. “Remember your vote. Use it for your country. For you.” Meanwhile, Labour stuck to a soundbites-taken-out-of-context format in one video, attacked Metsola’s ‘Palestine stance’ in another, and then used children’s building blocks to explain Malta’s lowest-in-the-EU electricity prices. Which campaign videos are convincing you the most?

What’s happening today?: The Nationalist Party is holding activities in Mġarr and Santa Luċija at 6pm and 6:30pm respectively. The Labour Party is holding an activity in Siġġiewi at 6:30pm. ADPD's Sandra Gauci and Independent candidate Arnold Cassola is attending an NGO-led protest in Valletta. Cassola will also be on Xejk TV for an interview at 9:15pm.