Why bother to stand for election if you don’t want your seat?

Therese Comodini Cachia has been elected to parliament. She also holds a seat in the European Parliament. She cannot hold both and had to choose. She has chosen, immediately, the European Parliament seat.

Why stand for election if you don’t want the seat? What about all those people who elected you to be their representative, who sat and agonised over whether to give you their number-one vote or not?

Unfortunately, this makes it look like Dr Comodini Cachia was hedging her bets in this general election, and was only prepared to give up her European Parliament seat for a seat on the government benches.

I have a lot of respect for her, and to say that I am disappointed at this behaviour is an understatement. She is far more necessary in the Maltese parliament, where she would have added weight to the Opposition benches, than she is in the European Parliament, though I’ll admit that it’s a lot less attractive.

The Opposition also loses one woman from its line-up, and there are few enough of those as it is.