A former PN election candidate, Marlene Pullicino, is on the MLP list of candidates which the general conference of the Labour Party is due to approve tomorrow.
The list also features the entire parliamentary group of the Malta Labour Party. Among them is Joe Debono Grech, the fiery former minister who has been on the Labour ballot paper since 1971. He was first elected in 1976 and has never lost an election since, becoming the MP with the longest continuous service in the current. (Joe Brincat was elected in 1971 but his service was interrupted.)
Two former MPs will also be seeking a return. They are John Buttigieg, the son of late President Anton Buttigieg, who was first elected in 1971 but had not been re-elected since 1992, and Rita Law, who was elected in 1998 but not in 2003. Dr Buttigieg, whose base is Hamrun, will contest the first and seventh districts, while Ms Law will stand in the second and the third.
The most well known among the new candidates will be the MLP deputy leader for party affairs Michael Falzon, who will contest the second and 10th districts. Both are very important for the MLP. In the second, the MLP is seeking a senior figure to replace Dom Mintoff, who retired in 1998. The most senior figure on that district to date has been former minister Joe Mizzi. In the 10th district, the MLP will try to regain the second seat, which it lost in 2003.
Simon Micallef Stafrace, the son of former Labour minister Joe Micallef Stafrace will contest the first district .
Dentist Marlene Pullicino will debut for the Labour Party on the fifth and seventh districts, but this is by no means her first foray into politics and general elections – The then Marlene Pullicino Orlando was a PN candidate in 1998 and won just over 300 votes.
“I have returned to the party of my youth” was how Dr Pullicino put it to timesofmalta.com.
She explained that her family had been active in the MLP but she opted for the PN in 1987, when she voted for the first time, given the state of the country at the time. Although she ran in the 1998 election, she said she could not devote enough time for it because she had just given birth. “Now I have been campaigning for years,” she said.
She said that the process leading to her standing as an MLP candidate started from a letter to the editor printed in The Times. That letter, called Give Labour a Chance, led the MLP leadership to contact her and she was encouraged to put her name on the ballot paper.
“With the MLP having accepted EU membership, returning to it was not difficult, the MLP of today feels like the PN of 1987” she said.
Ms Pullicino will be standing on the fifth district, which includes her hometown Zurrieq, and the seventh district.
Not new on the ballot paper, but now better known than ever before is Prof Anthony Zammit, Dr Sant’s surgeon, who is expected to stand on the fifth and seventh districts.