PN Lists Borg as Candidate, Then Says He Is Not One

Nationalist Party leader Alex Borg is defending his decision to retain his Gozo parliamentary seat after winning election on two districts, relying on a reading of the PN's own statute that places him outside the rule he would otherwise have to follow. The statute requires MPs elected on two districts to vacate the seat where they received the lowest proportion of first-count votes, but it defines 'candidates' as party members approved by the party executive — a process the party leader does not go through.

On that basis, the PN contends Borg is technically exempt and free to choose which seat to keep. The PN's own website lists him among the 65 candidates the party announced for the general election, leaving the party simultaneously arguing that its leader both was and was not a candidate depending on which rule is under discussion.

Borg told listeners of the PN's radio station on Saturday that he had sought guidance from party lawyers and had 'peace of mind' that he had respected the statute's provisions. His stated rationale went beyond procedure. 'Everyone knows I began my political career in Gozo, and I wished to show Gozitans that I was not forsaking them just because I became the party leader,' Borg said.

' The downstream consequences are concrete. Because Borg retained the Gozo seat, no casual election will be triggered there. The casual election falls instead on the 12th district, where George Vital Zammit, a university academic described as the lead author of the PN's electoral programme, is expected to be elected.

The candidate who misses out is Luke Said, a 22-year-old Gozitan with a background in environmental activism, who had been next in line for the Gozo seat. Borg frames the outcome as a strengthening of Gozo's PN representation in Parliament. Four Gozitan PN figures will sit in the chamber: Beppe Galea, who won the party's second Gozo seat; Frank Anthony Tabone, who enters through the constitutional proportionality mechanism; Norma Camilleri, who benefits from the gender quota; and Borg himself.

That four-MP cohort would have existed regardless of which seat Borg chose to retain, however, since the vacated seat on the other district simply passes to Zammit. Borg and the PN's lawyers read the definition of 'candidate' as a genuine carve-out for the party leader. The party's own pre-election publication of a candidate list that included Borg's name among 65 candidates points in a different direction.