Alex Borg enters the record books
In being elected leader of the Nationalist Party, Alex Borg achieved a first and broke three records
First Gozitan
While the PN’s first leader, Fortunato Mizzi, was descended from a man who emigrated from Italy to Gozo in 1655, Borg is the first leader of the party – and indeed of any major local party – to be born on the island. Five of PN’s 10 leaders over the years – Mizzi, his son Enrico, Ugo Mifsud, George Borg Olivier and Lawrence Gonzi – were born in Valletta.
Youngest political party leader
Aged 30, Borg has broken the record as Malta’s youngest elected party leader, held for the past 76 years by Dom Mintoff, who in 1949 became Labour leader aged 33. Joseph Muscat came close to breaking the record in 2008, when he was chosen as Labour leader, aged 34.
The average age to become a party leader in Malta is 46.
Borg himself says his age is just a number. “Obviously, I have much to learn, but I believe this will bring a generational change to the party and a new mentality from which it can inspire a new hope for Malta,” he told Times of Malta in June.
Narrowest of election wins
Even the clichéd ‘hair’s breadth’ feels too wide to describe the margin by which Borg beat Delia early on Sunday morning, with the former winning by just 44 votes, or 50.1%. This is the narrowest leadership election victory in Maltese history.
Grech’s predecessor, Bernard Grech, beat Adrian Delia with a resounding 69.3% of the vote in 2020. Three years earlier, Delia won 52.7% of the vote in the contest against his rival Chris Said, the latter a Gozitan.
In 2013, Simon Busuttil obtained 50.3% of the votes in the race to succeed Lawrence Gonzi, but that was against three other candidates.
And potentially Malta’s youngest prime minister
Polls suggest that a PN victory at the next general election would be a tall order for Borg. However, should he succeed in overturning Labour’s sizeable majority, the young Gozitan would be the youngest prime minister in Malta’s history, after Ugo Mifsud, who in 1924 was elected, aged 35, also making him the youngest prime minister in the British Empire.