Giorgio Borg Olivier

Giorgio Borg Olivier GCPO KSS (Maltese: Ġorġ Borġ Olivier) (5 July 1911 – 29 October 1980) was a Maltese politician. He twice served as Prime Minister of Malta (1950–1955 and 1962–1971) as the Leader of the Nationalist Party. He was also Leader of the Opposition between 1955–1958, and again between 1971–1977.

Borg Olivier was elected as one of the three Nationalist members of the Council of Government in 1939. In May 1940, when the leader of the Nationalist party, Enrico Mizzi, was first interned by the British and deported, Borg Olivier became interim leader. After his return, Mizzi made Borg Olivier his deputy. Rising to office as a protégé of Mizzi and Sir Ugo P. Mifsud, Borg Olivier believed in the economic and social development of Malta as a viable independent state and in the necessity of a mixed economy. During his premiership, he pursued corporatist policies to develop the tourism industry and construction as the engine of growth. Under his leadership, average living standards rose steadily as Malta began to decouple from a fortress economy purely dependent on the British military establishment.

Near the end of his rule as prime minister, his government was rocked by various political and personal scandals, which seemed to symbolize the moral decay of the Maltese political establishment. Resigning from Leader of the Nationalist Party in 1977, Borg Olivier retained his parliamentary seat until his death in 1980. He was succeeded as leader of the party by Eddie Fenech Adami.

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