Parliament may vote to appoint Myriam Spiteri Debono as president on Wednesday

Myriam Spiteri Debono could be approved as the next president by parliament on Wednesday, MaltaToday has learnt.

The former Speaker was proposed by Prime Minister Robert Abela and is understood to have been favourably received by Opposition leader Bernard Grech.

“The indications are that a motion to appoint Myriam Spiteri Debono president will be presented in parliament on Wednesday in time to have her installed on 4 April when George Vella’s term ends,” sources privy to the talks said.

The new president requires a two-thirds parliamentary majority to be appointed after the Constitution was changed in 2020.

Spiteri Debono, 72, will be the 11th president since Malta became a republic on 13 December 1974.

She was Speaker of the House between 1996 and 1998, during the turbulent Labour administration that ended prematurely. She was the first woman to occupy the role of Speaker.

She had contested elections with the Labour Party and had also captained the women’s section of the party.

Spiteri Debono’s name cropped up after the Opposition shot down Abela’s proposal to nominate outgoing European Commissioner Helena Dalli.

Sources close to the PN had said the parliamentary group would oppose anyone who formed part of the Joseph Muscat administration.

The PN had nominated Spiteri Debono for the role of Standards Commissioner in January 2023, but she had said she was not interested in the post.

In a speech on Victory Day in 2021, Spiteri Debono had paid tribute to journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, calling for national redemption.

Spiteri Debono had said the death of Caruana Galizia switched on the nation’s “warning lights”.

“It was a death that shocked us. It is difficult, indeed impossible, to heal the wound suffered by her family, the sorrow of those she loved and who loved her. We need to redeem ourselves as a nation. We need to unite, as we did in the past, for the necessary changes of our time, changes we have already started to do,” Spiteri Debono had said.