Former Housing Minister Roderick Galdes has filed a complaint with Labour Party officials contesting a vote that blocked him from contesting as a candidate, claiming party rules were breached during the decision-making process, Times of Malta reported.
Galdes was rejected by the party’s executive in a secret vote held on Monday, shortly before Prime Minister Robert Abela announced the start of the election campaign.
According to the report, the initial vote on Galdes resulted in a tie, triggering a second vote, which he subsequently lost.
However, party sources told Times of Malta that Galdes is contesting the validity of the first vote, arguing that one of the participants was not entitled to vote.
The complaint claims that if that vote had been excluded, the result would have shifted in his favour, meaning a second vote would not have been necessary.
The newspaper reported that Galdes is understood to have referred to Economy Minister Silvio Schembri in his complaint.
Under Labour Party rules, only six MPs are entitled to vote within the executive, and Schembri is not among them.
Both Galdes and Schembri typically contest the sixth district, making them district rivals.
Sources quoted by the Times said Galdes has asked party president Alex Sciberras to rectify the situation by removing any invalid votes from the initial count.
In comments made on Tuesday morning, Galdes said he was the victim of a “coordinated attack by a political group,” though he did not specify who he was referring to.
He said the alleged attack was intended to tarnish his name and carry out a character assassination through conjecture and false accusations, for which there is no evidence and which were never substantiated.
Galdes was first elected to Parliament in 2004 and has served in Labour governments since 2013, initially as a parliamentary secretary and later as a minister in 2020.
He was responsible for the housing portfolio from 2017 until January this year, when he resigned following allegations linking him to contractors, which he denied, describing them as “attacks” and insisting he had “done nothing wrong.”
Asked about the decision to exclude Galdes from contesting the election, Abela declined to state whether he agreed with the outcome.
