Five counts down the line, Etienne Grech makes it to parliament

Labour’s Etienne Grech has been returned to parliament on the fifth count in today’s casual election for the vacated seat on the Fourth District. He beat off former parliamentary secretary Stefan Buontempo and Andy Ellul, a criminal defence lawyer who – along with his girlfriend Claudia – held a ‘position of trust’ in Michael Farrugia’s secretariat, when Dr Farrugia was Family Minister in the last government. Dr Ellul is a brother to virulent anti-EU campaigner Sharon Ellul Bonici.

In the last parliamentary term, Dr Grech was a member of the House Health Committee, and two years ago during a debate on organ donation, he astonished his fellow committee members by saying that when he was a medical student, he used to filch human kidneys from the lab to practise on at home.

Etienne Grech, a medical doctor with a wife and two children, was returned to parliament in today’s casual elections, on the fifth count, seeing off former parliamentary secretary Stefan Buontempo, with whom he is often confused, and Sharon Ellul Bonici’s brother, Andy Ellul