Mayor uses casting vote to break deadlock over Mosta award for Daphne Caruana Galizia

Mosta council stop from using secret ballot to award the assassinated journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia the Gieh il-Mosta honour

Daphne Caruana Galizia will receive the Gieh il-Mosta award
Daphne Caruana Galizia will receive the Gieh il-Mosta award

The government’s department for local governance has stopped the Mosta local council from awarding honorees of its Gieh il-Mosta award, by a secret ballot.

Mosta mayor Keith Cassar (PN) has denied reports that the local council held an urgent sitting on Saturday morning to force through the award for the assassinated journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, with a casting vote to break a deadlock between councillors.

Every year the Mosta local council honours residents with either one of its two awards, the Gieh il-Mosta and the Rikonixximent il-Mosta. The honorees are voted on by local councillors in a secret ballot that has been employed every year since the rules were agreed upon in 2015.

In this year’s list of honorees, which includes Caruana Galizia, the nominations were received in August  and approved on 3 September 2013 by the secret vote.

But Cassar said that it was only on Friday afternoon that the local council was informed by the local councils department that it could not carry out any secret ballots as part of its day to day running.

“In these circumstances, there was no alternative but to call another meeting with urgency so that councillors could vote again to confirm the 3 September awards, in a vote as required by the director of local councils and as required at law,” mayor Keith Cassar said.

Cassar was reported to have used his casting vote to break a deadlock of six PN councillors’ votes against six Labour councillors for the award to Caruana Galizia. Mario Fava, a Labour Party official who is also a Fgura local councillor and a member of the Association of Local Councils, derided the award saying it was “deprecatory to put the honorees on the same level as Caruana Galizia… Labour councillors voted against honouring a person who spread lies and hate. The PN councillors have debased this award.”

Cassar denied reports by Labour news organ One News that the meeting was held to approve the Gieh il-Mosta award for Caruana Galizia, who was killed by a car bomb outside her residence in the nearby hamlet of Bidnija.

The local council also voted on awards for Dr Victor Calvagna, Michael Bartolo, George Porter, Mario Riolo, Fr Albert Buhagiar, Edward Vella, Francesco Tonna and Anne Lewis Mangion. The Rikonoxximent l-Mosta will be awarded to past local councillors John Mary Camilleri, Joe Oliva and Josette Agius Decelis and the international athlete Martin Fenech.

“This council has always been above partisan politics and it will keep working in the interest of Mosta residents. We ask the media to be faithful in their reports and not resort to any sensationalism,” Cassar said.