Election History Bites | The Boffa-Mintoff showdown

In the first post-war election in 1947, the Labour Party then led by Paul Boffa, was the outright winner with a record-breaking 59.9% of the vote.

But the administration only lasted three years in the wake of a fatal split that followed a clash between Boffa and his deputy, the up-and-coming Dom Mintoff, over how to deal with the British.

In October 1949, at the Labour general conference, Mintoff successfully put forward a no-confidence motion in Boffa, who resigned as leader. Boffa went on to form the Malta Workers Party (MWP) with the support of several MPs. Mintoff was elected leader of the Labour Party.

The acrimonious fallout split the PL’s massive support base and in the 1950 general election, Mintoff’s party obtained 28.6%, while Boffa’s MWP obtained 23.2%. The parties won 11 seats each in the legislative assembly. The MWP went on to form a coalition government with the Nationalist Party. It was the first of three successive, short-lived coalition governments between the PN and the MWP.

By 1955 the MWP had ceased to exist and most of its supporters, called Boffisti, coalesced once again behind the Labour Party, giving it an absolute majority of 56.7% in the election held that year.

Election History Bites powered by Agenda Bookshop is a series of election-inspired stories that will be published from Monday to Friday every morning throughout the election campaign