Arnold Cassola cost us votes, Cacopardo says of AD's election showing

Alternattiva Chairperson Carmel Cacopardo said that former party member Arnold Cassola cost him and AD candidate Mina Tolu votes in the MEP elections.

Cacopardo and Tolu obtained 1,021 and 845 first-count votes respectively while Cassola, contesting independently, obtained a total of 2,127 first-count votes.

"It was a political stratagem of his to run independently. He was hoping to obtain a measure of the conservative vote. It didn't work for him, but his running independently cost us votes," Cacopardo told MaltaToday.

Cassola had decided to run independently over what he said were disagreements over abortion after Tolu took to social media saying that a discussion needs to be opened on abortion.

Cassola had said that he would never agree with abortion rights and subsequently decided to run as an independent candidate. Cacopardo believes that this was a ploy to obtain votes outside the typical AD threshold.

With regards to the local council elections, Cacopardo said that he didn't believe the green party did badly.

"I wouldn't say we had a bad showing. We obtained quite a number of votes and did quite well but, of course, the Maltese electoral system did not work in our favour. Cross party voting wasn't too prevalent," he said, adding that his biggest disappointment was losing a seat in Attard where AD typically do quite well.