Alfred Sant
Alfred Sant (born
February 28,
1948) is a
Maltese politician, who served as
Prime Minister of Malta between 1996 and 1998.
He graduated from the
University of Malta in
Home economics, studied public administration at International d'Amministration Publique in
Paris and holds a Master of Business Administration from
Boston University Graduate School of Management and a Doctor of Business Administration from
Harvard. He also served for some time in the Maltese Public Service in the Malta mission to the EC.He was appointed Chairman of the Department of Information
Malta Labour Party in 1982 and, in 1984, President of the Party. In this post he served until 1988. In 1987 he was co-opted in Parliament and was elected to the House in the 1992 elections. In that same year he was elected Leader of the Party and Leader of the Opposition.
The
Malta Labour Party won the 1996 elections under Sant but Party problems forced him to call early elections in 1998 which the Party lost.
During the run-up to the
2003 referendum on Malta's accession to the European Union, Sant opposed membership and favoured a partnership agreement instead. Sant was also critical of what he called a "sham referendum" insisting that a general election would be enough to settle this issue. Eventually, Sant partially boycotted the referendum by calling on Labour supporters to either vote No, or else abstain or invalidate their vote. This helped the Yes side to marginally win the referendum, which result Sant rejected, claiming the Yes did not have the absolute majority of the whole electorate and citing the 1956 Integration Referendum as precedence. When, a month after the referendum, the Malta Labour Party (MLP) again lost the elections Sant resigned. He did, however, stand for election again and was overwhelmingly re-elected Leader.
Eventually Alfred Sant was instrumental for the MLP General Conference to approve the proposed EU Constitution in July 2005, paving the way for unanimous parliamentary ratification at a time when the Constitution had just been rejected by the French and Dutch referenda.
