Godfrey Farrugia has confirmed he will resign as leader of Partit Demokratiku leader once the local council results are out this week.

“I have served my country and PD to the best of my ability and I will resign along with the rest of the executive as soon a the local council results are out so that PD will have all its options open,” Farrugia told Lovin Malta.

If Farrugia decides not to re-contest, the PD would have to find its fourth leader since its inception three years ago.

Partit Demokratiku only won 5,276 first-count votes in yesterday’s European Parliament election, with Farrugia himself only winning 1,668. Meanwhile, clean-up activist Cami Appelgren won 3,053 votes, a better result than her leader, while fellow PD candidates Anthony Buttigieg and Martin Cauchi Inglott only won 306 and 259 votes respectively.

“We have worked as a PD team, we are a party of liberals and democrats and I am proud of Cami’s success,” Farrugia said. “I note with satisfaction that women candidates have clinched the best results without quotas.”

Asked to assess the PD’s result, Farrugia said that while he cannot call it a raging success, it’s a definite improvement on its 2017 election result and an increase over what the pre-election surveys were predicting.

He also left the door open to future synergies with other small parties and independent candidates.

“We are open to such a proposal and have been working on it,” he said. “Our interest is the national interest. The country needs a strong opposition, we will work with those entities that are close to our ideology.”

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Tim Diacono

Tim is interested in the rapid evolution of human society and is passionate about justice, human rights and cutting-edge political debates. You can follow him on Instagram or Twitter/X at @timdiacono or reach out to him at [email protected]