Dom Mintoff: Difference between revisions

Dom Mintoff
File:Malta-mintoff.jpg
Prime Minister of Malta
In office 1955 – 1958 21 June, 1971 - 21 December, 1984
Preceded by	Giorgio Borg Olivier
Succeeded by	Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici
Personal details
Born	August 6, 1916 Bormla
Political party	Malta Labour Party
Spouse	Moira Mintoff (née) Bentinck

Dominic Mintoff (born 6 August 1916) was Prime Minister of Malta under British colonial rule, between 1955 and 1958, and then after independence, serving between 1971 and 1984. He was also Minister of Works and Reconstruction (1947-49) and, together with the premiership, held the Finance (1955-58), the Foreign and Commonweath Affairs (1971-1981) and Home Affairs (1976-1981) portfolios. He is an architect and civil engineer, educated at the University of Malta and Hertford College, Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship.

Childhood

Dom Mintoff was born in the dockyard city of Bormla, also known as Cospicua and grew up in a poor nieghbourhood called Il-Bastjun.

Political life

Mintoff founded the Malta Labour Party (MLP) in 1949 after a cabinet split with veteran Labour Party leader Dr Paul Boffa. He served as Leader of the Opposition between 1950 and 1955 when the MLP won the elections with Mintoff as Prime Minister. The main electoral pledge of this government was integration with Great Britain. This, however, failed and Mintoff resigned calling for independence.

Mintoff served again as Leader of the Opposition between 1962 and 1971. In 1971 his party won the elections and Mintoff, as Prime Minister, oversaw nationalisation, expansion of the welfare state, constitutional changes (Malta became a republic in 1974) and the closure of the British military base on the islands in 1979. More controversially, Mintoff strengthened ties with the Qaddafi regime in neighbouring Libya, with communist countries such as China, and (in a secret treaty) with North Korea.

Mintoff's relations with the local Catholic Church authorities were marked by confrontation. The Malta Labour Party Executive was interdicted by local Catholic authorities between 1958 and 1969. The Bishops of Malta declared that it was a mortal sin to vote Labour and to read Labour Party newspapers. A truce between the Church and the Malta Labour Party was reached in 1969.

In June 1971 Mintoff won the general election, with the unofficial slogan Malta Marida Mediċina Mintoff (Malta is Sick, Mintoff is the Cure).

He abolished capital punishment, introduced the minimum wage, and many social services including children's allowances, opened government health clinics and founded a national airline, Airmalta. He also founded a national maritime line, Sea Malta, in order to facilitate cargo shipping movements for Maltese businesses. He championed the cause of the Palestinian people, at a time when European nations still harboured lukewarm feelings towards their issue.

In 1976 Mintoff was reelected with a clear majority. He continued with slum clearance projects in the Valletta harbour area. His followers called him is-Salvatur (the Saviour) considering that he was attributed as having eradicted poverty from Malta. He takes the credit of having stemmed the massive swell of emigration that affected Malta during the Nationalist years. His most famous phrase was that of Malta l-Ewwel u Qabel Kollox (Malta First and Foremost).

Mintoff's last years in office were marked by disagreements over the church's role in education, particularly schools. He stepped down as Prime Minister in 1984, but remained a backbench MP.

Like any influential politician, for some he remains an ogre, for others a hero. His critics deem Mintoff’s years in the international scene as marked with ambiguity and vagueness for his unclear stances in foreign policy, a tactic which he used to keep as distant as possible from both superpowers while being granted financial and technical help for Malta.

The Labour administration tried to establish good relations with countries forming part of the two blocks which dominated international society in that era, but avoided having deals with the two superpowers. Mintoff was again in the news in 1998 when he voted against the Government in a vote about a yacht marina in the Three-Cities, which the Prime Minister Alfred Sant considered as a vote of confidence, an act which brought about the premature downfall of the first Labour Government after 10 years of Nationalist administration.

Mintoff did not contest the 1998 and 2003 elections. Although he has campaigned against Malta's membership of the European Union, it could be argued that his actions of 1998 in abstaining in a confidence vote asked by the Prime Minister himself eventually led to Malta's accession to the European Union. It can also be said that Mintoff always had an influence in all constitutional and historical events of the last 50 years. The climax in Mintoff's career was reached on 31 March 1979 with the closure of the British military base and the departure of the British military services from Malta. To this day, Freedom Day is still celebrated as one of Malta's five National Days.

Controversial decisions

• Mintoff's government removed several religious-public holidays from the calendar, while making Saturdays a free-day for workers.

• Mintoff's government passed a law forbidding the use of the words "Nazzjon", "Nation" and "Malta" for commercial purposes.

• Mintoff had a conflict with the Sisters of the Little Company of Mary (Irish Blue Sisters). Eventually the nuns were evicted on the grounds that they did not accept the conditions governing the licencing of hospitals proposed by Mintoff.

• A famous chapter in the history of the University of Malta saw the then recently-elected Dom Mintoff halt an ongoing medical course in its track and cancel the first- and second-year students' university enrollment. The students were not financially compensated, their work at the university went unrecognised, and they were not offered advanced placement into any other courses. Mintoff's Government took this decision as most medicine students were leaving Malta after obtaining their B.A.

Trivia

Known as Il-Perit (The Architect) or Tal-Pipa (The pipe smoker), he had an avid interest in horses and had the habit of wearing a massive buckle with a horse insignia during mass meetings. Other than horse-riding and reading, he has a passion for the traditional bowls game il-boċċi, that he played in his country house at Delimara. The Nationalist government chose to build a new power station a few metres distant from Mintoff's country home. His favourite expletive reserved to his opponents is ġidra(turnip).

Mintoffian era

It can be said that the "Mintoffian era", at least in the Labour Party, came to an end in 1992 when Dr. Alfred Sant was elected as Party Leader. Sant filled the seat which became vacant after Dr. Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici's resignation. Arguably, Mifsud Bonnici was Mintoff's protégé, even if the latter criticised the former. During a speech in Parliament, Mintoff declared that his biggest error in his political career was that of proposing Mifsud Bonnici as his successor. It can also be said that Mintoff's legacy still influences the Labour Party. This is most evident in the nationalistic and highly Eurosceptic (especially prior to Malta's accession into the EU) outlook of the Party.