The Labour Party on Tuesday paid tribute to former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who on Monday resigned his seat in Parliament.

Muscat resigned with an adjournment speech which lasted just over a minute, nine months after he was forced to resign in disgrace as prime minister following widespread anti-corruption protests. 

Muscat led the Labour Party for more than 12 years, with seven of them spent as prime minister. Under his leadership, the party swept back to power and won 10 consecutive elections.   

The PL described the Muscat years as being characterised by his work for "renewal, change and strength."

It said Muscat had built a movement of liberals, progressives and moderates while retaining people who had always supported the party. 

Muscat was also the leader who acquired the highest number of first count votes in a general election and the only one who won all the elections he contested, the PL noted in its tribute. During the time he spent as PL leader, the Nationalist party had three different ones, the party added.

The PL said that Muscat had led Malta during a period of unprecedented economic growth, with GDP rising by an average of almost 7% each year during his time as prime minister and public finances in surplus for the first time in 32 years. 

Muscat had moved the first tax-free Budgets in Maltese history, cut electricity tariffs and built a new gas-fired power station, it said, while the number of people living in poverty had been halved. 

The PL statement ran through a number of other changes the Muscat governments had brought about, from introducing free childcare to allowing civil unions, landmark LGBTIQ-friendly legislation and lowering the voting age to 16. 

The party's tribute statement, however, steered clear of noting that Muscat had resigned with the country in turmoil following arrests linked to the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia which also implicated some of his top men and brought transparency shortcomings in the country into focus. 

Instead, the PL said that Muscat had kept his promise of justice in the Caruana Galizia murder.

The party also thanked Muscat’s wife Michelle who, it said, not only supported her husband but also took her own initiatives to raise a conscience on different causes and give a voice to Maltese and Gozitans who had been left alone.