Alfred Sant and Marie Louise Coleiro Preca both served alongside Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici in the Labour Party of the late 1980s and early 1990s. 

Here, they recall a man who was a tireless and generous worker who, they say, was misunderstood and misrepresented by many.

Mifsud Bonnici died on Saturday, aged 89.  

Alfred Sant

Former Labour leader who succeded Mifsud Bonnici in 1992

Maybe Karmenu was too receptive to the ideas of Dom Mintoff. He had a brilliant mind and had he been bolder in taking more decisions himself, maybe he would have been a greater political success.  

Karmenu enjoyed a very good reputation among the people who knew him, but he was maliciously and unjustly attacked by the Nationalist Opposition, which tainted his reputation to this very day.  

The Opposition would continuously present him as dull-witted, foolish and arrogant, when in fact he was one of the sharpest minds of his time, especially when it comes to law and taxes.  

He was honest in every single thing he did. Even when I didn’t agree with him, it was about something he was being entirely sincere about.  He was a gentleman and a true listener. He would have his own ideas and be capable of taking his own decisions, but he would genuinely listen to you and delegate work efficiently.  

He was not simply a socialist, but a true Christian. Whereas Mintoff pushed the politics of socialism, KMB pushed the politics of labourism, which, unlike socialism, was not associated with the atrocities of communism and was a more centrist take on politics, inspired by social values. Thanks to his vision, he attracted Labourites who had left the party.  

I believe his vision was to create a less arrogant Labour Party.  

Despite seeming an enemy of the Church on the outside, he was, in fact, so fond of its values that he couldn’t believe how the Church wasn’t more open to providing its education to all. And during his tenure, he set out to straighten relationships with the Church.  

As prime minister, he also tried to strengthen a weak economy, but he didn’t have enough time to do it before the 1987 election threw him out of power.

Quite admirably, he was also one of the designers of the solution to the voter/seat majority issue, cut statutory ties with GWU and lifted the boycott of President Ċensu Tabone. 

Marie Louise Coleiro Preca 

Former president who served as general secretary of the Labour Party under Mifsud Bonnici 

Karmenu's death shocked me to my core.

We last visited him around a month ago. With his usual tenderness, he asked me about my daughter and then told me to write and keep working to fight social justice.

He hated inequality. As a lawyer, he worked free of charge for many clients and was continuously handing out money from his own salary to vulnerable people who would come to his office asking for help. He would do this even when he was prime minister.

I remember sometimes having to go to his office to warn him that some people might not be genuine, but he would do it anyway. That’s how generous he was. Money never lasted long in his pocket.

I don’t think Castille ever saw as many people as it saw during his tenure as prime minister.

Even though he never wanted to become prime minister, he made it his mission to bring change to the country through Christian values but was portrayed unfairly and was misjudged throughout his life.

He was a selfless, good man of gentle discipline, and he definitely was not corrupt. He had a very sweet sense of humour behind closed doors and he was so humble he never even wanted a state funeral.

The employment and industrial relations law is his monument. He helped craft it with brilliance, even though his parliamentary tenure was over by then. I also remember him working on the first financial law in Malta.

I still treasure a small, wooden statue of a peasant woman reading a book that he gave to me as a gift.

'This is for you, because you love books,' he told me, and left it on my desk. It was a gift he had just received. But that's how he was. He never kept anything for himself.