Birkirkara remains without a mayor as independent councillor blocks both PN and PL proposals
One of Malta’s largest localities – Birkirkara – remains without a mayor as the council’s only independent councillor has refused to back either the Nationalist Party or the Labour Party.Kaylocke Buhagiar blocked a nomination
One of Malta’s largest localities – Birkirkara – remains without a mayor as the council’s only independent councillor has refused to back either the Nationalist Party or the Labour Party.
Kaylocke Buhagiar blocked a nomination for a PN mayor and another for a PL mayor meaning that, as the rest of the councillors stuck to party lines, neither motion passed – leaving the town with no mayor.
Six rounds of voting took place during a meeting on Tuesday evening, with the Labour and Nationalist Party proposals both failing with 7 votes against them and 6 in favour, as independent councillor Kaylocke Buhagiar voted against both proposals.
In the absence of a mayor, the meeting was chaired by the local council’s longest-serving member, PN’s Marie Claire Zammit.
As it stands, the 13-person council is split between 6 councillors each from PL and PN, with 1 independent councillor, Kaylocke Buhagiar, who had previously served in the council as a member of the PL.
The PN however emerged as the biggest party in the locality, with a relative majority of 47.51% compared to 41.66% for the PL, which had led the locality ever since 2013.
Desirei Grech was the PN’s most popular candidate, achieving 1,802 first count voters, although the PL’s Yana Borg Debono Grech was ever so slightly more popular – achieving 1,805 votes at the first count.
Independent Kaylocke Buhagiar was the fourth most popular candidate on first count votes, as he received 999 votes – enough for him to be elected on the first count.
The PN nominated Grech to be mayor of the locality, while the PL nominated Borg Debono Grech to be mayor – but neither proposal went through as Buhagiar voted against them.
In a Facebook post following the meeting, Grech said that there was no agreement during the meeting over who should be appointed Mayor. She continued that the interests of the Birkirkara locals are at the forefront of her agenda and that she will work so that those interests are adhered to entirely and “without compromise.”
The PL councillor who received the most votes, Yana Borg Debono Grech, also posted on Facebook after the meeting in which the PL’s proposal to appoint her as Mayor had failed as well.
“During today’s meeting, I was nominated by the councillors of the Labour Party for the post of Mayor, where there were 6 votes in favour and 7 against,” she said in her post. She added that the same had happened with Desirei Grech, the councillor nominated by PN.
She continued that this happened because the party councillors voted according to the nominations of their respective parties whilst the independent candidate voted against both proposals.
The PL councillor also revealed that her party’s proposal included the nomination of Buhagiar for the post of Deputy Mayor, a proposal which Buhagiar himself voted against.
It is worth noting that for someone to be nominated as Mayor, another councillor has to put their name forward in a proposal, meaning that Buhagiar cannot nominate himself and would have to reach an agreement with one of the two parties if his goal is to become mayor.
Buhagiar, in a Facebook post, simply said that there was no agreement among the councillors when it comes to who should be appointed to the post of mayor. He said that another meeting would take place on the 9th of July, where the issue would be revisited.
Attempts were made to contact Buhagiar, but they proved futile by the time of writing.
A similar scenario presented itself in the Mellieha local council, where the PN won a relative majority in votes but did not win the majority of seats, with an independent councillor – Matthew Borg Cuschieri – proving to be the deadlocking factor.
An agreement was ultimately reached for the PN’s lead candidate Gabriel Micallef – who was the candidate who achieved the highest amount of votes in the locality – to be appointed as mayor, with Borg Cuschieri serving as deputy mayor.
The situation in Birkirkara is slightly more complicated, because while the PN has a relative majority – like in Mellieha – the most popular candidate in the locality was a PL candidate, albeit by three votes.
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