Nationalists to field Jason Azzopardi in ‘true blue’ 9th District

Jason Azzopardi will venture into traditional blue territory in the next general election with a candidature on the 9th District.

He will be trying his fortunes on a district that elected three Nationalist MPs in the last election – Kristy Debono, deputy leader Robert Arrigo and Marthese Portelli, who has since resigned from the House.

Azzopardi confirmed that he has started working on the district although the candidature has not yet been formalised.

“I was approached by party representatives on the ninth district to put my name on the ballot and I accepted with the blessing of the party,” he told MaltaToday.

Azzopardi will also be contesting on the 4th District, which includes his hometown Paola, from where he was elected to parliament in the last election. He has been an MP since 1998.

But Azzopardi may encounter resistance on the 4th District, having aligned himself with rebel MPs in ousting former leader Adrian Delia. The former leader had strong appeal among Nationalists in the south.

The PN has only been able to elect one MP in the Paola district and although Azzopardi remains a front runner his election may not be automatic.

The 9th District is made up of Msida, Swieqi, San Ġwann, Għargħur and Ta’ Xbiex, with Azzopardi likely to tap into the cohort of voters, referred to within Nationalist circles as ‘the Daphne crowd’. Azzopardi was a lead MP in the Nationalist challenges filed in court to force police investigations into the allegations published by the late journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. He later became the lawyer of the Caruana Galizia family when she was assassinated in October 2017.

Votes up for grabs

With Marthese Portelli leaving politics for good last year and former ministers George Pullicino and Francis Zammit Dimech calling it a day, the 9th District has at least 2,326 Nationalist votes up for grabs.

Portelli obtained 1,468 first-count votes in 2017, while Pullicino – a former minister – and party secretary-general Zammit Dimech obtained 419 and 439 respectively. These votes equate to 18% of the PN vote on the 9th District in 2017.

The PN captured 56.3% of the votes on the district in the last general election, an increase of more than two points on the 2013 result. It elected three MPs against the Labour Party’s two.

The balance of seats between the two main parties will remain unchanged in the next election, even if the PN vote is likely to increase.

Azzopardi’s candidature will seek to add some veteran muscle to the PN’s offering on the district alongside new candidates such as lawyer Joe Giglio, Tiffany Abela Wadge and Graham Bencini.

Debono and Arrigo, who have strong roots in this district, will definitely be in the running for two of the PN’s three seats but the arrival of Azzopardi and Giglio, who is one of the new faces being pushed by the party, could disrupt the game.

Giglio is also a familiar face in the world of TV pundits, whose exposure earned him a sizeable following inside the PN: in a 2019 survey among possible rival contenders to former party leader Adrian Delia, Giglio was named by respondents as a possible party leader, scoring a trust rating of 5.9%, despite being then an outsider.

Another wild card in the ninth district will be business entrepreneur Ivan J. Bartolo, who was elected to the House of Representatives in the casual election when Marthese Portelli resigned last year. He subsequently gave up his parliamentary seat for the co-option of leader Bernard Grech.

Bartolo’s ‘sacrifice’ to give the leader the chance to make it to parliament may not go unnoticed by PN voters in this district.

PN in the 9th District: 2017 General Election

Overall result

• PN 13,007 votes or 56.3%
• PL 9,712 votes or 42%
• Others 398 votes or 1.7%

PN had 3.38 of the district quota while PL had 2.52 of the quota.

Elected PN MPs

• Kristy Debono (4,022 first count votes)
• Robert Arrigo (2,099)
• Marthese Portelli (1,468) - resigned in 2020
• Ivan J Bartolo (1,204) – elected in casual election instead of Portelli, later resigned to make way for Bernard Grech

Votes up for grabs

• Marthese Portelli - 1,468
• George Pullicino - 419
• Francis Zammit Dimech - 439

Total: 2,326 equivalent to almost 18% of the PN vote on the district.