Alex Borg – from Mr World Malta to the PN’s new leader
Following a summer-long campaign, Borg secured 50.1% per cent of the votes from PN paid-up members
Alex Borg, 30, is now officially the youngest leader of a major political party in Malta, after he won the PN leadership contest.
Should the Nationalist Party also win the upcoming general election, Borg would also become the youngest-ever prime minister of Malta.
Following a summer-long campaign, Borg managed to edge out his former mentor, Adrian Delia.
Borg secured 50.1 per cent of the votes from PN paid-up members, just 44 more ballots than Delia.
The PN announced his victory at around 4 am, nine hours after polls closed.
Borg, who had become Gozo’s biggest political voice in the PN, hails from a family with political roots.
He is the son of the late Tony Borg, who served as mayor of Fontana and as chief of staff to former popular Gozo minister Giovanna Debono. On several occasions, he has spoken publicly about his close relationship with Debono.
He began his political career that year, when he was elected to the MŻPN’s (the PN’s youth wing) executive committee as the Gozo coordinator. This was followed by his election to the Nationalist Party’s executive committee in July 2021.
In 2022, he was elected to parliament as the PN’s most popular candidate in Gozo, securing 6,100 votes, almost as many as Labour’s frontman in Gozo, Clint Camilleri, who secured 6,458. He outpaced veteran Labour MP Anton Refalo (5,002), as well as several incumbent and senior PN figures.
As an MP, Borg is known as having conservative beliefs. Soon after he was elected, he and two other PN MPs, including Adrian Delia, voted against a new IVF law that allows genetic testing before implantation.
The rest of the Opposition MPs had agreed to vote with the government on that law.
Talks of a close relationship with big business have also dogged the now PN leader.
Among the most recent controversies were his statements concerning the Fort Chambray development in Gozo.
Environment and heritage NGOs accused him of taking the side of big business, misleading people into thinking the new owners were bound to foot the bill for the fort’s restoration, when, in fact, it would be taxpayers who would ultimately pay for the multi-million-euro project.
This led to the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life finding that Borg breached ethics, particularly after he refused to apologise for his misleading comments.
But Borg has managed to win over many critics and is seen as a fresh, charismatic figure appealing to younger voters.
A lawyer who graduated in 2019, Borg has spent much of his campaign arguing that the PN needed a “generational change” and a winning mentality.
Borg, often seen as Delia’s protégé, surprised many when he announced his candidacy for the party leadership, thus coming up directly against his mentor — even though party sources said the two had initially agreed not to run against each other.
Like Prime Minister Robert Abela, Borg is a gym enthusiast. He is a former water polo player and won Mr World Malta in 2020.