Carm Mifsud Bonnici moves from his traditional second district

Former justice and home affairs minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici will not be contesting March 9 general election on his traditional hometown district, and has opted to accept to run on the third and fourth electoral districts.

The 52 year-old lawyer, who resigned his ministerial post in May last year after losing a confidence motion which was backed by PN backbencher Franco Debono, will be shying away from his traditional hometown of Bormla, in a bid to avoid a repeat of 2008, where he garnered a meagre 600 first preference votes.

While Mifsud Bonnici was unreachable yesterday, a canvasser for the former minister told MaltaToday that the choice of shifting to the third and fourth districts, was a "logical choice" given that in the last election, Mifsud Bonnici garnered a meagre 648 votes and was the first to be eliminated in the 6th count.

Bormla however remains a traditional stronghold for the Mifsud Bonnici family, having been the main constituency to his grandfather and former PN grandee Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici known as 'il-Gross', also for his father, the former President Ugo Mifsud Bonnici.

Mifsud Bonnici however, remains committed to the constituency which returned him to the House in 2008 from the third district, with 2,222 first preference votes, but was only elected on the 18th count when he reached the established quota.

Mifsud Bonnici will hold on to the third district which includes Zejtun, part of Fgura and Marsascala, and will for the first time run on the fourth district, which includes Tarxien, where some 2,000 votes which belonged to former PN minister Jesmond Mugliett are up for grabs.

Since his resignation and return to the PN backbench, Mifsud Bonnici has reportedly embarked on an aggressive door to door campaign in his districts.

Party activists pointed out that the PN's administration played an important role in convincing Mifsud Bonnici not to contest on the second district.

Friends and canvassers told MaltaToday that Mifsud Bonnici's chances to be elected on the second district were slim, given Prime Minister and PN leader Lawrence Gonzi is expected to garner the highest number of votes.

Backbencher, and cousin to Gonzi, practitioner Stephen Spiteri is next in line to obtain most of the PN votes in a district where Labour is known to have always dominated, and where it will be fielding its leader Joseph Muscat in a bid to regain its historical 4-1 majority.

On the third district, Mifsud Bonnici is said to be working hard to secure the votes of disgruntled PN voters who traditionally voted for veterans Frans Agius of Zabbar and parliamentary secretary Mario Galea of Zejtun, while on the fourth district, he aims to gain former minister Jesmond Mugliett votes, which so far have appear not to have shifted to minister Jason Azzopardi.