Watch: Anne Agius Ferrante, Malta’s First Woman Nationalist MP, Has Passed Away At 97
Anne Agius Ferrante, Malta’s first woman to get elected to Parliament on a Nationalist Party ticket, passed away yesterday evening at the age of 97.
Agius Ferrante was elected in 1980, 33 years after women received the right to vote, and after Agatha Barbara, who was elected in 1947 with the Labour Party and served as Malta’s first female President.
It was a steep hill of political hurdles to get there.
“Once I had a corner meeting on Prince Of Wales. The meeting was me, not a soul else. People came across the road, laughed at me and went away. It was terrible, embarrassing, but you get used to everything,” Agius Ferrante recalled in an interview with Lovin Malta.
“I got into politics in 1980, I got elected. Some thought she’s crazy, she’s never going to do it. Others said to go on ahead push on and we’d push with you.”
“I was as fascinated by politics, I wanted to get in and discuss with people.”
European Parliament President Roberta Metsola lamented her passing, saying she was a “trailblazing, formidable powerhouse of integrity.”
Metsola even revealed that Agius Ferrante was the first person she wrote to when she ascended into her high role in EU politics.
“We kept in touch over the years. The very first thing I did when I was elected as the European Parliament’s First Vice-President was to write to her. I thanked her for making the path easier, for enduring so that my generation would not have to, and to promise her that I will play my part in making it easier for those who come after me,” Metsola wrote.
“A grateful Malta will miss her. May she rest in peace.”
RIP Anna Agius Ferrante
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