Kaylocke Buhagiar Plans To Become Birkirkara’s First Independent Mayor
After making history as Birkirkara’s first-ever independent councillor, Kaylocke Buhagiar hopes to take it a step further and become the town’s first-ever independent mayor.
The recent local council election left Birkirkara deadlocked, with both PL and PN winning six seats and Buhagiar, a former PL councillor, winning one seat to effectively place him in a kingmaker position.
With 47.51% of the vote, the PN emerged as the most popular party, way ahead of PL’s 41.66%, and PN leader Bernard Grech has said the party expects mayorship of Birkirkara.
However, the votes obtained by PL and Buhagiar combined amount to 49.5%.
Buhagiar confirmed with Lovin Malta that he would like to be appointed mayor and is in discussions with both PL and PN.
He said he believes a solution can be found in Birkirkara as it was in Ħaż-Żebbuġ, where independent Steve Zammit Lupi was confirmed as mayor.
Zammit Lupi was the most popular Ħaż-Zebbuġ candidate by far, winning a whopping 2,342 first-count votes, and was the only councillor to get elected on the first count.
In the case of Birkirkara, Buhagiar was also elected on the first count but was the fourth most popular candidate overall in terms of first-count votes, behind PL’s Yana Borg Debono Grech (1,805 votes), and PN’s Desirei Grech (1,802 votes) and Maurizio Gauci (1,661 votes).
However, while Ħaż-Zebbuġ elects nine councillors, Birkirkara elects 13.
The situation could be resolved next week, when the Birkirkara local council convenes for its first meeting of the new legislature. As councillors cannot propose themselves as mayor, Buhagiar will require a PL or PN councillor to propose him. However, he will be able to vote for himself.
There are other potential solutions though. Lovin Malta has been informed that one of the options being discussed could see PL and PN agree to split the mayorship between themselves and cut Buhagiar out entirely.
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