Alfred Sant looks back on his tenure as prime minister, which began on this day 25 years ago, with satisfaction.

“I knew that we stood a good chance of winning,” he told Times of Malta.

“We were surrounded by social and political efforts that tried to hinder us, and I believe the Times was one of them, but people wanted change.”

Sant, now serving as MEP, says he strived to do away with the “stigma” that Labour was a violent party and attributes his victory to his party’s connection with the people in the run-up to the election.

“While the PN was busy being a party for the powerful people, we focused on the normal, powerless and vulnerable citizens and we went around the entire country knocking on every door, meeting face-to-face with as many people as we could,” he recalled.

“Many people did not agree with us on pulling out of the EU membership bid but they nonetheless felt the country needed to be modernised.

“And that’s exactly what we began to do during my two-year tenure. We went around modernising every sector of the economy, every ministry and department.”

Sant recalled the day he took the oath of office and admitted he was never into victory celebrations.

“I appreciated that the people were celebrating happily but I was focused more on the job ahead. I was never a fan of celebratory rituals... and I wanted to get going,” he said.

“Someone had urged me to take the oath the night the result was announced but I refused and decided to hold the ceremony the next morning because I wanted it to be transparent. I regret not taking that advice, because PN officials raided the offices overnight and completely wiped out the files from all the computers.”

Sant also weighed in on the infamous government collapse 22 months after his election.

“The tenure had to end with the greatest act of political vandalism since independence,” he said with reference to his fallout with Dom Mintoff.

“In 1998, the PN was re-elected over an act of political vandalism.”

Cachia Caruana: two causes for PN defeat

Richard Cachia Caruana, who served as Fenech Adami’s chief of staff between 1991 and 1996, sees two policy reasons for the PN being in trouble in the run-up to the election.

“First VAT, which, due to some hardheadedness on the part of the ministry of finance, impacted small businesses disproportionately,” he said.

Richard Cachia Caruana.

“Secondly, the EU, due to Malta’s failure to join in 1995 with Sweden, Finland and Austria when the PL successfully pushed a ‘your own friends don’t want you’ line. I remember speaking to Anthony Manduca [then editor of The Malta Business Weekly] after the election telling him that if Sant had just continued with our EU negotiations even at a slow pace and simultaneously tinkered with VAT, he was likely to remain in government for 10 years.

“The rest is history.”

Lawrence Zammit: polls were 'confusing'

Pollster Lawrence Zammit also says that Labour’s door-to-door campaign was pivotal to that 1996 victory. However, he also believes the decisive issues that eventually steered Sant to Castille were his promise to remove VAT, the stand on hunting and the controversial presidential pardon that the PN cabinet had granted to Brazilian drug lord Francesco De Assis Queiroz.

He admitted that the polls back then were “confusing”.

“It was clear people wanted change but it seemed they were still supportive of the PN on the economy, health, education, social welfare and other bread and butter issues,” he said. 

Zammit said the survey numbers were volatile but the September poll showed Labour was ahead.

Joe Brincat reflected on the result in a Times opinion piece published days after the election.

Just days after the result, former PL deputy leader Joe Brincat wrote in the Times, admitting that many within Labour were surprised with the result, especially after the high turnout figure was confirmed.

Former PN minister Michael Falzon had just tightened the belt on hunting regulations at the time and he also thinks that might have been one of the causes for the PN’s 1996 defeat.

“I think that people believed the PN would still win but, then again, historically around the world, no party has ever introduced VAT and won re-election,” he said.

“And Sant played the VAT card, convincing people he could do away with it forever, when, in fact,  he had no idea how to implement it. I believe that is why he left Lino Spiteri out of it back then because Spiteri would have surely held him back.”

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