A former leader of the party founded by his father, Enrico Mizzi led the Nationalist Party through expulsion to Uganda and significant internal reform.  

Enrico Mizzi become the leader of the Nationalist Party in 1926, following in the footsteps of his father, who founded the party. 

He would lead the party through the expulsion of several of its members to Uganda during WW2 and significant internal reform upon his return.

Mizzi worked tirelessly to get the party back on track, eventually becoming Prime Minister in a hung parliament in 1950.

However, his success would be short-lived, dying just three months into his tenure as Prime Minister at 65.

Mizzi is the only Prime Minister of Malta to die while in office.

2. Francesco Buhagiar – 345 days (13th October 1923 to 22nd September 1924)

Malta had been less than two years into self-rule under the British crown when Francesco Buhagiar became the country’s second-ever Prime Minister in October 1923.

He replaced Senator Joseph Howard, who himself had served just 1 year and 352 days. 

Both formed part of the Maltese Political Union, which would be merged with the Nationalist Party just a few years later in 1926.

Buhagiar led the MPU into the 1924 elections but was succeeded by Ugo Mifsud, who was the youngest Prime Minister in the British Empire.

Buhagiar had a distinguished career in politics and was eventually appointed as a judge of the Superior Courts. 

He has been remembered as an accomplished jurist, a practical man and a highly respected politician.

3. Alfred Sant – 1 year and 313 days (28th October 1996 to 6th September 1998) 

From more recent memory than Mizzi and Buhagiar, current MEP Alfred Sant led the Labour Party to victory in 1996.

However, his party led the PN by a one-seat majority in Parliament, leaving his government and his post in a perilous position. 

Sant’s downfall came from an unlikely destination, former Prime Minister and Labour Party juggernaut Dom Mintoff.

Mintoff, who is Malta’s longest-serving prime minister, and Sant had a tense relationship in Parliament that came to a head in a vote over a proposal to turn a dockyard in Bormla into a yacht marina run as a public-private partnership – something which ironically is commonplace today.

However, tensions had been rising for months and Mintofff even abstained on a budget vote a few months prior.

Mintoff did vote with the government in a no-confidence vote soon after the budget vote, but everything change once the Bormla development was proposed. 

Mintoff felt it would not benefit the residents of the area and he voted against the proposal. Sant felt that he had lost control of the government and called an election, which he would eventually lose. 

Mintoff, meanwhile, was labelled a “traitor” by Sant – and then-Minister Joe Debono Grech even allegedly tried to attack Mintoff in parliament. 

In a weird turn of events, Joseph Muscat, who was then a journalist for the Labour Party, wrote how an early election would be a “win-win” situation for the party.

The Labour Party would speed the next 15 years in opposition, with Muscat turning the tide and ushering in a period of dominance in 2013.

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