A Siġġiewi playground will be named ‘Nalizpelra’, in memory of Times of Malta cartoonist, Maurice Tanti Burlò, who died in December 2014.

The decision stirred controversy after Labour councillors objected to the proposal citing “political connotations”.

Piloted by the local council, the €160,000 project involves the embellishment of an existing playground in Triq it-Tabib Nikol Zammit.

In February last year, Siġġiewi mayor Karol Aquilina had floated the idea of naming this open space after Mr Tanti Burlò who died at the age of 78. Over the years, the cartoonist – who used the pen name Nalizpelra – developed strong links with the locality having spent 30 years of his life as a resident.

Dr Aquilina also suggested decorating a large wall at the playground with some of the artist’s works featuring the Siġġiewi landscape.

At a meeting on February 23, 2015, Labour councillor Nicholas Cassar, who back then was the minority leader, said he had no objection and the proposal was unanimously approved with Mr Cassar seconding the proposal himself.

Last month, the Malta Environment and Planning Authority issued a development permit and works on the embellishment project started. However, a few days later, the three Labour councillors, including Mr Cassar, who is no longer the minority leader, moved a resolution calling for the decision to be withdrawn. The other two Labour councillors did not sit on the council when the original decision was made, having been elected last April.

The U-turn was justified on grounds that residents wanted a more “representative” name for the open space. The Labour councillors also argued that children would struggle to pronounce the name Nalizpelra. Instead, they proposed to hold a competition among primary school students to choose a new name.

Though the resolution did not qualify what sort of objections were raised by the residents, the new Labour minority leader Clayton Cutajar uploaded a post on his Facebook account saying the proposed name had “political connotations”, which he deemed completely out of place for a playground.

In a separate post, Mr Cutajar quoted a Times of Malta interview with Mr Tanti Burlò, published in 2012, in which he recounted how he had started drawing cartoons to “get back at [Dom] Mintoff” for the manner in which the Labour government had been treating workers.

The issue came to a head last Monday during a council meeting.

Labour’s resolution was defeated following an amendment by the Nationalist councillors who hold the majority.