On 2 March 1888, Malta was in the middle of an election that changed the mechanics of colonial government. For decades, the “Council of Government” had existed, but it was structurally stacked: officials and the Governor could ultimately block or outvote elected voices, especially on money. That frustration had been brewing for years, and it even surfaced in London as a live political problem, with MPs and peers openly describing Maltese anger at being treated like a classic

On 27 February 1955, Malta was in the middle of a three-day general election (26–28 February) that would end with Dom Mintoff’s Labour Party winning a clear majority, and with it, the mandate that would carry Mintoff into Castille as Prime Minister for the first time a couple of weeks later. He was sworn in on 11 March 1955. To understand why this moment mattered, you have to picture Malta in the mid-1950s: still a British colony, still shaped by the aftershocks of war, and e

The first meeting of the Malta National Assembly took place in 1919. On the 25 th  of February, representatives from across Maltese public life gathered in Valletta for the first sitting of the Assemblea Nazzjonali. This was a turning-point moment in Malta’s push for self-government. It wasn’t a parliament, and it wasn’t elected by universal suffrage (the right of everyone to vote). But it mattered because it turned a growing, angry, post-war mood into an organised national d

On 21 February 2011, Malta suddenly found itself at the centre of one of the most dramatic early moments of the Libyan uprising. That afternoon, two Libyan Air Force fighter pilots flew their Mirage F1 jets to Malta and landed at Luqa, saying they had refused orders to bomb protesters in Libya. Maltese officials said the pilots told authorities they had been ordered to attack anti-government demonstrators, and one of them requested political asylum. The two pilots were report

19 February 1962 marks Mabel Strickland's return to Parliament after the 1962 election. Her way back into Parliament was a comeback that mattered far beyond a single seat. In the 1962 election, Strickland led the Progressive Constitutionalist Party (PCP) and secured representation in a Parliament that expanded to 50 seats. The party’s result was modest in raw numbers, one seat on 4.84% of the vote, but politically it was a statement that Strickland was back in the room where

Between 17 and 19 February 1962, Malta went to the polls in one of the most politically charged climates in its modern history, with the Labour Party still carrying the burden of l-Interdett, the Church’s sanction that turned a party preference into a question of sin, shame, and social exclusion. To understand why the 1962 election under the Interdict still stings in Malta’s memory, you need to grasp what the Interdett did to ordinary life. On 8 April 1961, Archbishop Michael

Three of the Maltese internees, Formosa, Ganado and Cossai, together with Enrico Mizzi in front of the internment camp at Uganda If you think the PL–PN rivalry is fierce, strap in. During the Second World War, the Constitutionalist Party accused members of the Partito Nazionale of conspiring with Mussolini. Was Gerald Strickland onto something, or was this a calculated move to neutralise his main political rival, Enrico Mizzi? This episode remains one of the darkest chapters

The year 2017 was a very particular year for Maltese politics. Today marks the anniversary of when Prime Minister Joseph Muscat brought a foreign delegation to Serkin in Rabat to eat pastizzi, like locals do. The images travelled: dignitaries in suits, no cutlery. It looked spontaneous. It wasn’t. It was soft power by design. A visual pitch for a country that wanted to believe that everything was “business as usual”. However, the backdrop matters. 2017 was not a calm year. Th

On 3 February 1995, a routine industrial operation at the Malta Drydocks turned into one of the island’s deadliest tragedies. The oil tanker Um El Faroud, already written off after years of service and damage, was being prepared for controlled demolition ahead of its planned sinking at sea. Instead, a powerful explosion ripped through the vessel, killing nine men, six dockyard workers and three Civil Protection firefighters, and injuring others nearby. The blast was immense.

Fifty years ago today, Malta signed a “Renewed Economic and Technical Co-operation Agreement” with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea). The agreement is a big clue to the kind of foreign policy Malta was trying to run in the 1970s. The agreement is listed by Malta’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs as “North Korea – Renewed Economic and Technical Co-operation Agreement”, signed on 30th January 1976 in Pyongyang. It is recorded as having entered into force on t

The 29th of January, marks the anniversary of the day Malta’s Parliament decriminalised consensual same-sex sexual activity in 1973. This was a legal change that, at the time, looked less like a “rights revolution” and more like an uncomfortable clean-up of an old morality law. Nevertheless, it marked the start of Malta's LGBT rights history What changed was simple but profound: the Criminal Code was amended so that private, consenting same-sex intimacy was no longer treated

On this day, Maltese television became the stage for one of the most emblematic episodes of the Nationalist Party’s internal crisis during the final years of the Gonzi administration. A live discussion on Bondiplus , hosted by Lou Bondi, featured PN backbencher Franco Debono at a time when the government’s one-seat parliamentary majority had rendered every dissenting voice politically consequential. The context was already charged. The background was a government operating wi

Il-Bandiera tal-Maltin was first published on 8 January 1898, as Manuel Dimech used journalism to challenge colonial power, clerical authority, and social injustice.

The bottom line is simpler than the politics makes it sound. The “My Voice, My Choice” vote does not introduce abortion in Malta, and it does not create a fund today. It strengthens the political push for an EU-level financing mechanism that could reduce the cost of travel-based access for people in restrictive Member States, including Malta. Whether Maltese residents could benefit even if Malta opts out depends on whether the final design funds providers directly, or channel

STRASBOURG. Irma Dimitradze came to the European Parliament to speak for someone who could not. Dimitradze, a Georgian journalist from Batumelebi, represented her imprisoned colleague Mzia Amaglobeli at the Sakharov Prize ceremony. The prize is designed to spotlight freedom of thought. In Georgia’s current climate, that spotlight functions as both protection and provocation. Amaglobeli’s detention has become part of a wider argument about whether Georgia is moving closer to E

Look at any Europe-wide chart on forest cover and Malta appears as an outlier. In 2020, just 1 percent of the country’s territory was classified as forested. Even the second-lowest EU member state, the Netherlands, registered 10 percent. Most of Europe sits far above that. Finland tops the list at 66 percent; Slovenia and Latvia exceed 50 percent. Malta stands alone at the bottom. The graphic is striking, but a sceptic, including this author, might argue that such comparisons

In 2015, the Government awarded a concession to Vitals Global Healthcare for the redevelopment, management, and operation of the Gozo General Hospital, Karin Grech Rehabilitation Hospital, and St Luke’s Hospital. After Vitals failed to meet its obligations and secure the necessary financing, the concession was transferred to Steward Health Care in early 2018. Steward likewise did not deliver the promised redevelopment works. In 2023, the Maltese courts annulled the concession

Over the past 15 years Malta’s population has grown at an outstanding rate. Adjusting for the pandemic years, net migration has averaged...

A petition launched by an Italian student to make Italian an official language in Malta made headlines. The Times of Malta later revealed...

When Prime Minister Robert Abela stands at the United Nations General Assembly tonight to formally recognise the State of Palestine, he will be drawing a line under nearly five decades of consistent Maltese policy. For Malta, this is not a sudden shift but the logical end point of a long trajectory that began in the 1970s, when the island had only just become a republic.