Election History Bites | Same name, different parties

There were two iterations of the Democratic Party (Partit Demokratiku) over the years although they have no link between them.

The first time a political party called Partit Demokratiku appeared on the ballot sheet was 1987 when it fielded four candidates, each contesting two districts. Led by economist Lino Briguglio, who had fallen out with the Malta Labour Party in the 1970s, the PD garnered just 380 votes in the eight districts it contested.

The candidates apart from Briguglio were Alfie Fabri, a radio DJ, Michael Zerafa and Michael Vella, a company director and the father of murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. The PD ran for the election under the slogan The Citizen First (Iċ-Ċittadin l-Ewwel), which nine years later was adopted by the Labour Party under Alfred Sant for the 1996 election.

Briguglio’s PD did not last long after the election and was eventually disbanded with some of those who helped found it moving on to join the fledgling Alternattiva Demokratika in 1989.

The second coming of the name Partit Demokratiku was in 2016 when then independent MP Marlene Farrugia set up a new political party. Farrugia had been elected to parliament as a Labour MP in 2013 but split from the party and retained her seat as an independent.

Eventually, her partner, former minister Godfrey Farrugia, also elected on the Labour ticket, joined PD at the end of the 2013 legislature.

Farrugia’s PD contested the 2017 general election but it was not listed on the ballot sheet. The party had reached a pre-electoral coalition agreement with the Nationalist Party and PD’s candidates appeared on the ballot sheet under the PN list. All PD’s candidates had the words ‘Tal-Oranġjo’ (Of the Orange) after their name on the ballot sheet to identify them. Orange was the party’s official colour.

Under this quirky arrangement, official data did not record the votes obtained by PD candidates separately since for electoral purposes they were part of the PN list.

However, the candidates labelled as Tal-Oranġjo obtained 4,846 first-preference votes, equivalent to 1.6% of the national vote. The PD also elected two MPs—Marlene Farrugia and Godfrey Farrugia—in this way.

In 2020, PD merged with Alternattiva Demokratika to form ADPD, which contested the 2022 general election and is doing so again now in 2026.

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