PN edges past Labour after 28-hour battle for St. Paul’s Bay

The Nationalist Party has regained control of the St. Paul’s Bay local council after winning the fiercest battle in this year’s round of local council elections.

The vote counting process kicked off at 6:30am on Saturday and the party majorities for all localities but St. Paul’s Bay were confirmed by 7:30pm. Remarkably though, it was not until 10:30am on Sunday that the PN were declared victors of St. Paul’s Bay.

The PN had won 3,701 of the first-count votes in this locality, compared with the PL’s 3,639 votes. As votes were transferred and the two parties remained neck and neck, it became clear that Alternattiva Demokratika was going to play the role of kingmaker. At the 20th count, five candidates were yet to be elected or eliminated – Simon Galea from the AD (311 votes), Daniel Grima from the PN (320), and Matthew John Barbara (552), Stephen Cremona (526), and Rodney Galea (344) from the PL.

Since Simon Galea had garnered the least amount of votes at this stage, his votes were consequently transferred. 203 of his votes were non-transferrable, meaning that those voters hadn’t picked either of the four remaining candidates as one of their preferences. Barbara earned 32 of Simon Galea’s votes, reaching the 555-vote quota, and was subsequently elected. Cremona earned 13, pushing his vote tally up to 539, while Rodney Galea earned 10, pushing his tally up to 354. The PN’s Daniel Grima was the biggest victor though, earning 53 votes and pushing his tally up to 373 votes and therefore above Rodney Galea.

With two candidates still to be elected, Barbara’s 29 surplus votes were filtered down, with Cremona earning 19, Galea earning 8, and Grima earning 1. This pushed Cremona’s tally up to 558 votes, reaching the quota and electing him as councilor. However, Galea remained12 votes behind his PN rival Grima. Cremona’s three surplus votes all filtered down to Galea, but this was a mere consolation for the PL candidate who finished a mere nine votes behind Grima.

Grima therefore became the 13th and final councilor to get elected, giving the PN a 7-6 majority of seats in the St. Paul’s Bay local council. Graziella Grima, who had earned the highest number of PN votes (1,546) at the first count, subsequently became mayor.