The fall of Nationalist stronghold Birkirkara to Labour yesterday completed the rout of the PN in local council elections, as last week’s drubbing at the national ballot was still ringing in people’s ears.
We’ve often seen local council elections used for protest votes
While the Nationalist Party’s second electoral slap in the space of a week will not sting as much as the first, its legislative outcome is much the same.
Apart from Birkirkara, Labour-led councils will take over from PN-dominated ones in Mellieħa, Mqabba, Mtarfa, Pieta and Santa Venera, while Valletta was just 150 votes away from turning red.
The PN’s defeat in Birkirkara was perhaps the biggest upset of this round of local council elections, with the previous 8-5 PN majority council now turned into a one-member PL majority.
Two-time mayor Michael Fenech Adami was re-elected but will have to hand mayoral duties over to Joanne Debono Grech, in what will be Birkirkara’s first-ever PL-led council.
Votes for all 33 local councils up for grabs were cast at the same time as those for the general election, so it perhaps came as no surprise to see a similar outcome in both.
While Labour improved its share of the vote across the 33 localities by some 2.5 percentage points compared to previous council elections, to reach 56.7 per cent, PN support fell from 44 per cent to 42.3 per cent.
Until Saturday, voters in Msida, Valletta and Mġarr were evenly split between the two parties, leading to multiple recounts and a terse counting hall atmosphere.
In the end, the PL held on to Msida’s local council by the skin of its teeth while Valletta and Mġarr went the PN’s way.
In the latter locality, independent candidate Giovanni Gatt was extremely unfortunate to miss out on a council seat, despite winning over nine per cent of the vote.
That voters used their local council ballot paper to reflect their wishes for the general election came as little surprise to political commentator Claire Bonello.
“Local councils have always been put on a secondary level, and we’ve often seen elections there used for protest votes,” she said.
“But having said that, councillors who performed better than the rest were rewarded by the electorate.” She singled out three such successful candidates – PN young gun Mark-Anthony Sammut, elected to Gudja local council, PN Sliema mayor Anthony Chircop and AD Sliema councillor Michael Briguglio – for praise.
“Unfortunately, in other cases we’ve had less-than-stellar councillors rewarded too, so the two sides tend to balance each other out,” Ms Bonello added.