Evarist Bartolo to contest general election: ‘There is a lot of work to be done’

Evarist Bartolo has announced that he will be contesting the next general election in what appears to be a change of heart by the veteran Labour MP.

Bartolo said on Facebook that he will leave it up to the people to decide whether they want to elect him to parliament.

Bartolo was first elected to parliament in 1992 and has made it in every election since then. He is currently serving as foreign minister after having occupied the role of education minister between 2013 and 2019.

In the 2017 election, Bartolo was elected on two districts – the 10th and 12th. On the 10th District he was the highest-scoring Labour candidate on the first count with 2,732 votes.

Sources close to Bartolo have told MaltaToday that the minister had been toying with the idea of quitting politics and not contesting the next election for quite some time.

However, in his Facebook post, Bartolo thanked Prime Minister Robert Abela and other people in the Labour Party who encouraged him to contest the election. He also thanked his family for its support.

“I have to thank the thousands of voters who always elected me to parliament in the seven general elections that took place since 1992. But rather than looking back at the almost 30 years of parliamentary work, in Opposition and in Cabinet where I gave all to the best of my knowledge and ability, and which was certainly not enough, and I also had my shortcomings, I am more interested in looking ahead to the lots of work that has to be done for the good of the people and the creation of jobs and wealth in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Bartolo wrote.

He said many people had approached him over the past weeks to encourage him to contest the election once again.