A 28-year-old lawyer, Carabott has been active in the PN since his teenage years, serving as a Santa Venera councillor since 2013. 

He spent some time working at the PN’s media house NET, where he is best known for trying to speak to then Pilatus Bank chairman Ali Sadr Hasheminejad as he exited his bank with a pair of suitcases on the night Daphne Caruana Galizia published the famous Egrant story.

Carabott was particularly active on TikTok throughout this campaign, with a video using a Big Mac to explain Malta’s inflation problem receiving around 80,000 views.

Mark Anthony Sammut

An infrastructure engineer and Gudja councillor, Sammut is renowned as a person who willingly speaks his mind and has addressed a number of protests demanding justice for assassinated journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

He was appointed PN Executive president by Adrian Delia in 2017 but resigned in the wake of the party’s disastrous performance at the 2019 European Parliament and local council elections, calling for “those who have a greater responsibility” to follow suit. 

He later said that one of Delia’s biggest shortcomings as leader was that he excluded his internal detractors instead of trying to win them over. 

Sammut returned to the frontline of PN politics last year, this time in the role of president of the General Council.

In recent months, Sammut has taken a strong stance against COVID-19 vaccine certificate rules, accusing the government of caring more about “controlling” people than containing the pandemic, and has suggested that the Health Ministry should stop publishing the daily COVID-19 bulletin. 

Jerome Caruana Cilia

Caruana Cilia works in financial services, lectures in AML regulations and corporate governance, and has experience as a journalist with NET and the independent newspaper Illum.

He was first elected to the Qormi local council in 2012, before being elected Minority Leader a few years later.

He has repeatedly said that people he meet during home visits have expressed their wish for the PN to be represented by newer and younger politicians, drawing parallels with how Robert Abela had appointed a relatively young Cabinet when he was elected Prime Minister in January 2020. 

Last year, he wrote an opinion piece for Lovin Malta in the wake of the publication of the Daphne Caruana Galizia public inquiry, calling on Abela to draw a clear line in the sand between himself and his predecessor Joseph Muscat.

Justin Schembri

A Maltese teacher, Schembri has been Minority Leader of the Birkirkara local council for the past few years.

Schembri has been particularly vocal about problems within Malta’s education sector, warning last year that the country is facing a teacher shortage because of the lack of respect shown to educators and education in general. 

He fought against the closure of schools during the second wave of COVID-19, arguing that they shouldn’t close their doors except as an absolute last resort, and has expressed skepticism on the obligation for students to keep their masks on in classrooms. 

In 2019, he raised eyebrows after praising Italy’s then Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini for his decision to close the ports to migrant search-and-rescue vessels.

Joe Giglio

One of Malta’s most popular criminal lawyers, Giglio has taken part in several high-profile court cases, including the trial of former Chief Justice Noel Arrigo, the murders of Hugo Chetcuti, Lassana Cisse and Christian Pandolfino (as parte civile lawyer), the attempted murder of Richard Cachia Caruana, the Jordan Azzopardi drug trafficking case and the Allied Newspapers money laundering case.

He is a proponent for drug law reform and has condemned PL and PN for “politicising” the issue, warning this stance has left victims like Daniel Holmes in its wake. 

Giglio has often been touted among PN circles as a future leader but has repeatedly played down these calls. 

In an interview with Lovin Malta a few days before the election, he expressed his confidence that PL wouldn’t win by a landslide and that the electorate will respond to the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia and the several scandals wich took place under the PL governemnt.

Ivan Castillo

An Enemalta technical officer, Castillo has been extremely vocal about the concerns of Mellieħa residents since he was elected to the local council in 2019. 

A few years ago, Castillo and his wife Corinne opened up about their inability to have children.  

“Corinne had two miscarriages, the second one worst than the first, and it wasn’t easy at all,” Castillo said. “It was a very difficult pill to swallow but when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade and this brought us closer together.”

During this election campaign, Castillo put a smile on many people’s faces after recounting how an elderly constituent had mistaken a campaign bookmark he had posted in her letterbox for a santa in the PNs documentary series Ħerġin.

Alex Borg 

A lawyer who specialises in corporate and shipping law, Borg is a bodybuilder who has modelled for a number of major clothing brands and who recently represented Malta at the Mr World modelling competition. 

Although he has little political experience himself, he comes from a politically engaged family as his late father Toni Borg was a close assistant of former PN Gozo Minister Giovanna Debono.

Last year, Borg issued a “wholehearted condemnation” against the NGO Repubblika and the youth group Civil Society Network, describing them as “irrelevant” to his work after CSN published a Facebook poll asking whether a a new political party should replace the PN as Malta’s main Opposition.

Ian Vassallo Hagi 

A Rabat councillor since 2019, Vassallo is a podiatrist by trade and has previously spoken out about the realities of his job, including having to tell some patients that they have no choice but to amputate their feet.

Vassallo featured on Ħerġin this month in which he praised PN leader Bernard Grech for his ability to genuinely place himself in other people’s shoes when speaking to them. 

What do you think of these eight new PN MPs?