PN seeking ways to allow Alex Borg to keep Gozo seat as statute ambiguity creates confusion

The Nationalist Party is scrambling to find a way to let Alex Borg keep his Gozo parliamentary seat and give up the one obtained on the 12 District instead.

On Tuesday, MaltaToday reported that Borg will have to give up his Gozo seat because the PN statute stipulates that in the case of dual-candidacies the elected MP will have to give up the one with the least votes as a percentage of the district quota.

However, there seems to be confusion on the matter with sources saying that the statute was amended in 2024. The only available statute online--the one deposited with the Electoral Commission--is that from 2020, which is vague since it only makes reference to "percentage of votes" without specifying what it is referring to.

After the 2022 general election, then Secretary-general Michael Piccinino had clarified that the votes obtained had to be calculated as a percentage of the district quota. If this rule applies, Borg would have to give up his Gozo seat.

Nonetheless, sources close to the PN said that a re-interpretation of the statute was being sought so that Borg could keep his Gozo district seat.

One source said one of the interpretations was that the article in the statute governing dual-district seats should not apply to the party leader. The rule should only apply to candidates who went through the party's formal approval process, which Borg did not, as he is the party leader.

The PN has not confirmed this. When asked to confirm or deny the claim, a PN spokespersonsaid: "The party will communicate which districts are being vacated by its MPs elected in two districts, in due course."

Article 116 of the PN statute states that a candidate who contests on behalf of the party and is elected in more than one electoral district must vacate the seat in the district where they obtained the lowest percentage of votes in the count in which they were elected. The amibuous wording does not determine whether the vote tally should be worked out as a percentage of the PN's vote, or a percentage of the district quota. Nor does it distinguish between the leader and other candidates.

Borg scored 262.7% of the quota on the 13th District and 275.6% on the 12th District, which covers St Paul's Bay and Mellieħa. If the 2022 interpretation of the statute is applied, it require him to vacate his home Gozo seat.

The clause has a history of vagueness. In March 2022, then-Secretary-General Michael Piccinino wrote to election candidates, clarifying that the statute had been amended in July 2021 and specifying that the vacated seat would be determined by the candidate's first-count votes, expressed as a percentage of the district quota. At the time, the PN's website had not been updated to reflect the change. The amended statute was never put online or submitted to the Electoral Commission.

The only version available on the Electoral Commission's website remains the 2020 text, and neither the 2021 amended version nor any more recent statute has been made publicly available.