Alfred Sant
Alfred Sant ( born February 28, 1948) is a Maltese politician, former Prime Minister and former Chairman of the Malta Labour Party.
Study and academic titles
After studying physics and mathematics at the University of Malta, which he in 1967 with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1968 and a Master of Science graduating, he studied later Administrative Sciences at the ENA in Paris. He also holds a Master of Business Administration from Boston University and a Doctor of Business Administration from Harvard University.
Ascent to the party chairman
In 1982, he was first elected head of the information department of the Labour Party and two years as President of the Labour Party. In this office he remained until 1988.
In 1987 he was co-opted into the Parliament. In the parliamentary elections of 1992, Dr. Sant was then elected deputy and in the same year as the successor to Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition.
Prime Minister from 1996 to 1998
After the parliamentary elections of 1996, which won the Labour Party, Dr Sant was on 28 October 1996 as the successor to Edward Fenech Adami, Prime Minister of Malta. A few days later, he pulled the recording contract Malta back in the European Union and also explained the emergence of the Republic of the NATO program " Partnership for Peace " in order to preserve the neutrality and the national character of the Mediterranean island state.
Due to internal party problems but he was forced in 1998 to hold new elections, which the Labour Party but then lost. He was succeeded on 6 September 1998 by Fenech Adami as Prime Minister. This renewed then already on 15 September 1998 the application for Malta to the EU.
Opponents of the accession to the European Union
Prior to the referendum on the accession of Malta to the European Union 2003 Sant led his party to anti -accession course and favored instead a partnership agreement with the EU. Sant called the supporters of his party for a boycott of the accession referendum and actually stayed away from even the ballot box. The boycott resulted in the accession proponents barely won and the result Sant refused because it does not represent the majority of the population. In this context, he expressed the view that any non-voters would be against Malta's accession to the European Union.
In the parliamentary election in 2003 the Labour Party lost. Sant subsequently went down as party chairman, but was subsequently elected by a large majority re- elected chairman. His party voted on 6 July 2005, however, in Parliament and for the constitution of the European Union.
After the narrow defeat in the 2008 general election, it came within the Labour Party to conduct a primary election from the Dr. Joseph Muscat as the new party leader emerged.