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79-617: The Labour Party ( Maltese : Partit Laburista , PL), formerly known as the Malta Labour Party (Maltese: Partit tal-Ħaddiema , MLP ), is one of the two major political parties in Malta , along with the Nationalist Party . It sits on the centre-left of the political spectrum. The party was founded in 1921 as the Chamber of Labour by a small group of trade unionists . Ideologically,

158-521: A Maghrebi Arabic dialect in the Emirate of Sicily between 831 and 1091. As a result of the Norman invasion of Malta and the subsequent re-Christianization of the islands , Maltese evolved independently of Classical Arabic in a gradual process of latinisation. It is therefore exceptional as a variety of historical Arabic that has no diglossic relationship with Classical or Modern Standard Arabic . Maltese

237-574: A fourth MEP when the Treaty of Lisbon came into effect and the number of seats allocated to Malta increased from five to six. Muscat managed to win comfortably the 2013 elections held on 9 March by over 35,000 votes on the Nationalist Party. The Labour Party won a massive 55% of the votes. In the 2014 MEP elections, the Labour Party retained a majority of 34,000 votes (53%), but lost its fourth seat to

316-416: A large number of borrowings from Romance sources ( Sicilian , Italian , and French ) and, more recently, Germanic ones (from English ). The historical source of modern Maltese vocabulary is 52% Italian/Sicilian, 32% Arabic/Siculo-Arabic, and 6% English, with some of the remainder being French. Today, most function words are Arabic, so despite only making up about a third of the vocabulary, they are

395-979: A sample of 1,821 Quranic Arabic roots were found in Maltese, considerably lower than that found in Moroccan (58%) and Lebanese (72%) varieties of Arabic. An analysis of the etymology of the 41,000 words in Aquilina's Maltese–English Dictionary shows that 32% of the Maltese vocabulary is of Arabic origin, although another source claims 40%. Usually, words expressing basic concepts and ideas, such as raġel (man), mara (woman), tifel (boy), dar (house), xemx (sun), sajf (summer), are of Arabic origin. Moreover, belles-lettres in Maltese aim to maximise their use of vocabulary belonging to this group. Notes: * from Arabic استقصى ( istaqṣā ) "to investigate", ** from Arabic اشتاق ( ištāqa ) "to yearn for ". General Workers%27 Union (Malta) The GWU

474-414: A solution for the political crisis created, but when all attempts proved futile, he had no other option but to accept Sant and his government's resignation and a call for early elections , which were held on 5 September 1998. The Labour Party was defeated with a wide 13,000 vote margin. Back in opposition, the party campaigned unsuccessfully against EU membership, and the 'NO' camp lost the referendum for

553-464: A ḡ fir lanā ḏ unūbanā , kamā na ḡ firu na ḥ nu ʔ ay ḍ an lil-muḏnibīn ʔ ilaynā. wa lā tud ḵ ilna fī tajāriba , lākin najjinā min a š-š irrīr. ʔā mīn hab lan lahmo d-sunqonan yowmono washbuq lan hawbayn wahtohayn aykano doph hnan shbaqan l-hayobayn lo ta`lan l-nesyuno elo paso lan men bisho Amin Although the original vocabulary of Maltese was Siculo-Arabic , it has incorporated

632-1157: Is a member of the Party of European Socialists , and was previously a member of the Socialist International until 2014. The party structures are the General Conference, the National Executive, the Leader, and the Deputy Leaders, the Party Congress, the Party Administration, the Parliamentary Group, the Councillors' Section, the District and the Regional Administrations, the Local Committees, and

711-576: Is descended from Siculo-Arabic, a Semitic language within the Afroasiatic family . In the course of its history , Maltese has been influenced by Sicilian, Italian, to a lesser extent by French , and more recently by English. Today, the core vocabulary (including both the most commonly used vocabulary and function words ) is Semitic, with a large number of loanwords . Due to the Sicilian influence on Siculo-Arabic, Maltese has many language contact features and

790-849: Is distinctive word-medially and word-finally in Maltese. The distinction is most rigid intervocalically after a stressed vowel. Stressed, word-final closed syllables with short vowels end in a long consonant, and those with a long vowel in a single consonant; the only exception is where historic *ʕ and *ɣ meant the compensatory lengthening of the succeeding vowel. Some speakers have lost length distinction in clusters. The two nasals /m/ and /n/ assimilate for place of articulation in clusters. /t/ and /d/ are usually dental , whereas /t͡s d͡z s z n r l/ are all alveolar. /t͡s d͡z/ are found mostly in words of Italian origin, retaining length (if not word-initial). /d͡z/ and /ʒ/ are only found in loanwords, e.g. /ɡad͡zd͡zɛtta/ "newspaper" and /tɛlɛˈviʒin/ "television". The pharyngeal fricative /ħ/

869-654: Is less distant from its Siculo-Arabic ancestor than is Standard Maltese. Voiceless stops are only lightly aspirated and voiced stops are fully voiced. Voicing is carried over from the last segment in obstruent clusters ; thus, two- and three-obstruent clusters are either voiceless or voiced throughout, e.g. /niktbu/ is realised [ˈniɡdbu] "we write" (similar assimilation phenomena occur in languages like French or Czech). Maltese has final-obstruent devoicing of voiced obstruents and word-final voiceless stops have no audible release , making voiceless–voiced pairs phonetically indistinguishable in word-final position. Gemination

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948-737: Is most commonly described as a language with a large number of loanwords. Maltese has historically been classified in various ways, with some claiming that it was derived from ancient Punic (another Semitic language) instead of Siculo-Arabic, and others claiming it is one of the Berber languages (another language family within Afroasiatic). Less plausibly, Fascist Italy classified it as regional Italian . Urban varieties of Maltese are closer to Standard Maltese than rural varieties, which have some characteristics that distinguish them from Standard Maltese. They tend to show some archaic features such as

1027-404: Is part of the supercontinent of Eurasia'), while not understanding a single word of a basic sentence such as Ir-raġel qiegħed fid-dar ('The man is in the house'), which would be easily understood by any Arabic speaker. At that time Malta was thoroughly Arabized. The conquerors brought to the island the vulgar (colloquial) variation of Arabic, not the classical one (Classical Arabic), Therefore

1106-502: Is said to them in Maltese. This reported level of asymmetric intelligibility is considerably lower than the mutual intelligibility found between other varieties of Arabic. Maltese has always been written in the Latin script , the earliest surviving example dating from the late Middle Ages . It is the only standardised Semitic language written exclusively in the Latin script. The origins of

1185-599: Is spoken by the Maltese people and is the national language of Malta , and the only official Semitic and Afroasiatic language of the European Union . Maltese is considered a North African dialect of Colloquial Arabic that was brought to Malta by Arab and Berber ( Aghlabids ), who in 869/870 CE seized control of the island from the Byzantine Empire. It is also said that it descents from Siculo-Arabic, which developed as

1264-856: Is the Lord's Prayer in Maltese compared to other Semitic languages ( Arabic and Syriac ) with cognates highlighted: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen Ħobżna ta' kuljum agħtina llum . Aħfrilna dnubietna , bħal ma naħfru lil min hu ħati għalina . U la ddaħħalniex fit-tiġrib , iżda eħlisna mid-deni. Ammen ʔabāna , alla ḏ i fī as-samāwāt , li- yataqaddas ismuka , li- yaʔti malakūtuka, li-takun ma šī ʔatuka, kamā fī as-samāʔi ka ḏ ālika ʕa lā al-ar ḍ . ḵ ubzana kafāfanā ʔaʕṭi nā alyawm , wa

1343-570: Is the largest trade union movement in Malta and organised in a confederation format of 8 Sections each to an extent autonomous in conducting industrial relations. It is one of the two trade union centers recognised by the European Trade Union Confederation and the employees representative delegation at the International Labour Organization . The sections cover the manufacturing, services and the public sector of

1422-405: Is thus classified separately from the 30 varieties constituting the modern Arabic macrolanguage . Maltese is also distinguished from Arabic and other Semitic languages since its morphology has been deeply influenced by Romance languages , namely Italian and Sicilian . The original Arabic base comprises around one-third of the Maltese vocabulary, especially words that denote basic ideas and

1501-425: Is velar ( [ x ] ), uvular ( [ χ ] ), or glottal ( [ h ] ) for some speakers. Maltese has five short vowels, /ɐ ɛ ɪ ɔ ʊ/ , written a e i o u; six long vowels, /ɐː ɛː ɪː iː ɔː ʊː/ , written a, e, ie, i, o, u, all of which (with the exception of ie /ɪː/ ) can be known to represent long vowels in writing only if they are followed by an orthographic għ or h (otherwise, one needs to know

1580-452: The 2019 Maltese protests caused by the murder of anti-corruption journalist and government critic Daphne Caruana Galizia . Muscat was accused of impeding the investigation. Robert Abela was elected to replace him, promising continuity with previous policies pursued by the party. As the party held a parliamentary majority at the time of Muscat's resignation, Robert Abela would become prime minister immediately after, on 13 January 2020. He

1659-457: The 2022 general election , the Labour Party retained its majority in parliament, winning a third consecutive election for the first time since 1981 with 55.11% of the popular vote, the largest share since 1955 , marginally surpassing the 55.04% it scored in 2017 . Voter turnout was 86%. this was mainly because of various reasons including how Labour dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic , the fact that

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1738-641: The Italo-Normans ended Arab rule of the islands, a written form of the language was not developed for a long time after the Arabs' expulsion in the middle of the thirteenth century. Under the rule of the Knights Hospitaller , both French and Italian were used for official documents and correspondence. During the British colonial period , the use of English was encouraged through education, with Italian being regarded as

1817-426: The Nationalist Party candidate Therese Comodini Cachia. In 2015, the party was delisted from the Socialist International for not paying membership fees. In 2017, Joseph Muscat was re-elected during the general election , with Labour appearing to win with a clear landslide victory for the second consecutive time, merely an hour after the vote counting commenced. Under Muscat's leadership Malta's national deficit

1896-547: The Senate . Strickland became prime minister. Labour leader Savona was not elected, and the leadership of the Labour parliamentary group was temporarily entrusted to Colonel Michael Dundon . The Presidency of the Party and leadership of the parliamentary group was taken up by Paul Boffa later that year. In 1930, it adopted a party anthem. Labour gained nine seats out of ten in

1975-517: The diaspora . Most speakers also use English. The largest diaspora community of Maltese speakers is in Australia , with 36,000 speakers reported in 2006 (down from 45,000 in 1996, and expected to decline further). The Maltese linguistic community in Tunisia originated in the 18th century. Numbering several thousand in the 19th century, it was reported to be only 100 to 200 people as of 2017. Maltese

2054-569: The function words , but about half of the vocabulary is derived from standard Italian and Sicilian; and English words make up between 6% and 20% of the vocabulary. A 2016 study shows that, in terms of basic everyday language, speakers of Maltese are able to understand around a third of what is said to them in Tunisian Arabic and Libyan Arabic , which are Maghrebi Arabic dialects related to Siculo-Arabic, whereas speakers of Tunisian Arabic and Libyan Arabic are able to understand about 40% of what

2133-407: The schools , but felt compelled to do so a few days later as public pressure mounted. In April 2020, Prime Minister Abela called for 'national unity' on Television Malta , the country's national broadcasting television. This has been criticized for being partisan. In November 2020, Abela stated "that the party will continue to reinvent itself with the introduction of more young people and women at

2212-446: The 1980s, together with a grammar, the Regole per la Lingua Maltese , attributed to a French knight named Thezan. The first systematic lexicon is that of Giovanni Pietro Francesco Agius de Soldanis , who also wrote the first systematic grammar of the language and proposed a standard orthography . Ethnologue reports a total of 530,000 Maltese speakers: 450,000 in Malta and 79,000 in

2291-496: The 1987 elections. Labour won the 1971 general election and immediately set out to re-negotiate the post-Independence military and financial agreements with the United Kingdom. The government also undertook socialist-style nationalization programmes, import substitution schemes, and the expansion of the public sector and the welfare state . Employment laws were revised with gender equality being introduced in salary pay. In

2370-535: The 1996 elections held on 26 October by over 8,000 votes on the Nationalist Party. The 1987 constitutional amendments, which secured the necessary additional seats, had to be used for the second time, having been used for the same time in 1987. This same amendment had to be used a third time in 2008. However, trouble was brewing. Mintoff, for reasons known to him alone (within the MLP), started creating problems in Parliament for

2449-482: The 30th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII 's Rerum novarum . Led by Colonel William Savona , the Party contested the general elections held in 1921 and 1924 under the new Constitution that gave the country a measure of self-government. The Labour-Constitutional alliance won the 1927 general elections, but Labour lost ground, gaining 13.9% of votes, three seats in the Legislative Assembly and no representation in

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2528-474: The Branches. The General Conference is largely made up of delegates from the Party's other constituent structures and is the Party's highest organ. The National Executive brings together the Party Administration as well as elected representatives of other constituent structures and co-ordinators. The Party Congress is made up of all members of the Party and elects the Leader and the two Deputy Leaders (one for Party,

2607-445: The GWU publishes the newspapers It-Torċa and L-Orizzont . The GWU Youth Section is active amongst youths affiliated to the GWU by projecting their voice both internally, within the GWU structure, and externally, on a national and international level. The section is affiliated with UNI Youths , ETUC Youths , and ICFTU Youths . This article related to a European trade union

2686-598: The Independence celebrations when independence was actually achieved in 1964. The party made strong gains in the 1966 elections which, however, were not enough to see it in office. An unimportant split occurred in 1969 when the Communist Party of Malta was founded. This split happened as a result of the truce between the Malta Labour Party and local Catholic authorities. The Communist Party has since only contested

2765-487: The Labour Party and prime minister since 1947, resigned and left the party because of serious disagreements with his Deputy Dom Mintoff which had led to a series of cabinet crises. Boffa formed the Malta Workers Party (MWP) while Mintoff re-organized the Labour Party as the Malta Labour Party . It has also adopted The Internationale as one of its anthems. The Malta Labour Party contested its first elections for

2844-595: The Levant. The Norman conquest in 1091 , followed by the expulsion of the Muslims , complete by 1249, permanently isolated the vernacular from its Arabic source, creating the conditions for its evolution into a distinct language. In contrast to Sicily, where Siculo-Arabic became extinct and was replaced by Sicilian , the vernacular in Malta continued to develop alongside Italian, eventually replacing it as official language in 1934, alongside English. The first written reference to

2923-673: The Malta Legislative Assembly the following year. The old Labour vote was split equally between the MLP and the MWP, giving them eleven members each. This allowed the Nationalist Party (PN) to have a slight edge in the formation of a government, which it did in coalition with the MWP. The government did not last long. Two other elections were held in 1951 and 1953 (the last time a coalition governed in Malta) which both saw short-lived PN-MWP coalitions and

3002-666: The Maltese labour market and thus organise a wide cross section of interests. The union is affiliated to the International Trade Union Confederation and the European Trade Union Confederation as well as various sectoral international and European trade union federations covering the same sectors the GWU is organised therein. The 8 Sections of the Union covering most sectors of the economy are: Through its media and printing company Union Print Co.,

3081-500: The Maltese language are attributed to the arrival, early in the 11th century, of settlers from neighbouring Sicily, where Siculo-Arabic was spoken, reversing the Fatimid Caliphate 's conquest of the island at the end of the 9th century. This claim has been corroborated by genetic studies, which show that contemporary Maltese people share common ancestry with Sicilians and Calabrians , with little genetic input from North Africa and

3160-504: The Maltese language differs from Classical Arabic in the same way as the Arabic dialects differ from Classical Arabic. the Maltese language also comprises a considerable number of Maghrebi features, in other ways it can be closer to other Arabic dialects, or closer to Classical Arabic than to the other dialects as in the word ra ('to see'). Arabic supplies between 32% and 40% of the language's vocabulary. Żammit (2000) found that 40% of

3239-477: The Maltese language is in a will of 1436, where it is called lingua maltensi . The oldest known document in Maltese, Il-Kantilena ( Xidew il-Qada ) by Pietru Caxaro , dates from the 15th century. The earliest known Maltese dictionary was a 16th-century manuscript entitled "Maltese-Italiano"; it was included in the Biblioteca Maltese of Mifsud in 1764, but is now lost. A list of Maltese words

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3318-653: The Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail. L-Unjoni hija bbażata fuq il-valuri tar-rispett għad-dinjità tal-bniedem, il-libertà, id-demokrazija, l-ugwaljanza, l-istat tad-dritt u r-rispett għad-drittijiet tal-bniedem, inklużi d-drittijiet ta' persuni li jagħmlu parti minn minoranzi. Dawn il-valuri huma komuni għall-Istati Membri f'soċjetà fejn jipprevalu l-pluraliżmu, in-non-diskriminazzjoni, it-tolleranza, il-ġustizzja, is-solidarjetà u l-ugwaljanza bejn in-nisa u l-irġiel. Below

3397-647: The Party) and Joseph Muscat (an MEP). In the first round neither candidate obtained 50%+1 the majority of the votes. So a run up election had to be held on 6 June between the top two candidates who obtained the most votes, George Abela and Joseph Muscat . Muscat was elected Labour Party leader, gathering 66.36% of the total votes. He was co-opted in Parliament and appointed Leader of the Opposition on 1 October. During an Extraordinary General Conference, held in November 2008, it

3476-607: The abolition of plural votes, as well as the introduction of women 's right to vote. However, Labour deputies resigned from their posts in July 1946 due to mass redundancies at the Dockyards. In the meantime, the ' MacMichael Constitution ' had been introduced, granting self-government to the Maltese . Labour's participation in the subsequent October 1947 elections was once again supported by the General Workers' Union . The Party won 59.9% of

3555-473: The ascension of Malta in the European Union on 8 March (although Sant claimed victory) and was again defeated in the general election a month later on 14 April 2003, once more with a 12,000 vote margin. Sant resigned but stood again for party leader, where he was re-elected with more than 65% of the votes. In June 2004 the party succeeded in obtaining a relative majority of votes in the elections held to elect

3634-415: The branches of the party include the women's, youth , senior, and candidates' sections. Although not formally part of the party's structures, the party owns a number of media and communication outlets, the largest being the television station ONE and radio service ONE Radio through its holding company ONE Productions . The party also owns the publishing house SKS (Sensiela Kotba Soċjalisti) and produces

3713-544: The case of civil law, civil (non-religious) marriage was introduced and homosexuality and adultery were decriminalised. Through a package of constitutional reforms agreed to with the opposition party, Malta became a republic in 1974. The Labour Party was confirmed in office in the 1976 elections . In 1981 the Party managed to hold on to a parliamentary majority, even though the opposition Nationalist Party managed an absolute majority of more than 4000 votes. A serious political crisis ensued when Nationalist MPs refused to accept

3792-506: The centre of its decision-making process." On 18 February 2021, Abela announced plans to introduce a law that would end police arrests for those possessing a small amount of cannabis and plants for personal use. This bill was passed in December 2021, and Malta became the first country in the European Union to legalise cannabis. Abela's leadership was criticised with the number of co-options that had taken place, being deemed as undemocratic. in

3871-468: The decline in the share of votes to the MWP with increasing support for the Labour Party. The MWP eventually disintegrated and the MLP formed a government for the first time in 1955. This legislature was dominated by the issue of integration with the United Kingdom . The party, which started its life as an anti-colonial party with the slogan "Integration or self-determination" was now inclined towards

3950-500: The economy was still booming, and unemployment kept at a minimum low despite the pandemic and the way that Labour reinvented itself by tackling corruption and money laundering by ushered in a raft of rule-of-law reforms to counter claims of government corruption and grey listing of Malta by the FATF. The post of Leader of the Labour Party was created in 1928. Before this (1921–28) the post

4029-449: The elections held during November 1945, in which, contrarily to previous elections, all men over twenty-one years of age were entitled to vote. The Party's electoral programme, for the first time in Labour's history, did not make any reference to religion. Boffa's Government was supported by the General Workers' Union , and it carried out a number of reforms, such as the abolition of the Senate,

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4108-437: The electoral result and also refused to take their seats in parliament for the first years of the legislature. Premier Dom Mintoff called this action "perverse" but it was not an uncommon one in any parliamentary democracy with disputed election results. He proposed to his parliamentary group that fresh elections be held, but most members of his Parliamentary group rejected his proposal. Mintoff, who had been considering vacating

4187-482: The first five Maltese MEPs for the European Parliament . The party elected three of his candidates: Joseph Muscat (later replaced by Glenn Bedingfield ), John Attard Montalto and Louis Grech . In 2008 the Labour Party lost for the third consecutive time in the 2008 general elections , obtaining 48.79% share of the vote and losing the election to the Nationalist Party by just 1,580 votes or 0.5%. Following

4266-537: The first part of the formula. A referendum was held in 1956 but given the number of abstentions and massive opposition by the Nationalist Party and the Catholic Church , the result was inconclusive. This, together with a number of dismissals at the naval dockyard led to Mintoff's resignation and his call for massive protests in April 1958. The Governor re-established direct colonial government which lasted until 1962. In

4345-519: The increasing influence of Romance and English words. In 1992 the academy issued the Aġġornament tat-Tagħrif fuq il-Kitba Maltija , which updated the previous works. The National Council for the Maltese Language (KNM) is the main regulator of the Maltese language (see Maltese Language Act, below). However, the academy's orthography rules are still valid and official. Since Maltese evolved after

4424-439: The loss of the election, Sant resigned as Labour Party leader on 10 March 2008. The first round of the election of the new leader were held on 5 June 2008. Five members contested this election as candidates: George Abela (a former Deputy Leader), Evarist Bartolo (a frontbench MP and ex-Minister), Marie Louise Coleiro Preca (a frontbench MP and former Secretary-General of the Party), Michael Falzon (an MP and Deputy Leader of

4503-529: The meantime, the Malta Labour Party's connections with Third World Independentist and Socialist movements set it on a collision course with the Maltese Catholic Church, which the Party perceived as being pro-British and the cause of the failure of the Integration project. This led to the party leadership being interdicted from 1961 to 1964, when reading, advertising and distributing Party newspapers

4582-466: The most used when speaking the language. In this way, Maltese is similar to English , a Germanic language that has been strongly influenced by Norman French and Latin (58% of English vocabulary). As a result of this, Romance language-speakers (and to a lesser extent English speakers) can often easily understand more technical ideas expressed in Maltese, such as Ġeografikament, l-Ewropa hi parti tas-superkontinent ta' l-Ewrasja ('Geographically, Europe

4661-556: The new leader. Sant who won the election for party leader, and then modernized the party, secured a victory at the polls in 1996 . Under Sant's leadership the party made several changes. The party opened the new Labour Party Headquarters in Hamrun instead of the old Macina in Cottonera. The party also made giant steps in the media by being the first Maltese political party to own its radio and television stations. Sant managed to win comfortably

4740-405: The next-most important language. In the late 18th century and throughout the 19th century, philologists and academics such as Mikiel Anton Vassalli made a concerted effort to standardise written Maltese. Many examples of written Maltese exist from before this period, always in the Latin alphabet, Il-Kantilena from the 15th century being the earliest example of written Maltese. In 1934, Maltese

4819-538: The one-seat Labour parliamentary majority. In the summer of 1998, Labour lost a division vote on the proposed Cottonera waterfront project because of Mintoff's renegation on his parliamentary group. This was considered by Prime Minister Sant as a vote of no confidence in his government and informed the then-President of the Republic that he no longer held a parliamentary majority as a result. The President had on various occasions asked Prime Minister Alfred Sant to try to find

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4898-509: The other for Parliamentary affairs) and determines the Party's broad policy outlines. The Party Administration is made of the Party Leader, Deputy Leaders, and Party officials. The Parliamentary Group and the Councillors' Section bring together the Party's elected representatives in parliament and local councils . The Party is organised geographically in the local committees (smallest) and district and regional (largest) administrations. Finally,

4977-535: The other using Romance loanwords (from the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe Archived 2015-12-29 at the Wayback Machine , see p. 17 Archived 2020-08-04 at the Wayback Machine ): The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to

5056-546: The party leadership position even before the elections, voluntarily resigned as prime minister and Party leader in 1984 (although he retained his parliamentary seat). A Party General Conference in that same year appointed Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici who acted uncontested as party leader. The Mifsud Bonnici years were characterised by political tensions and violence. The deadlock was broken when constitutional amendments were made voted and made effective in January 1987 which guaranteed that

5135-482: The party was orientated towards democratic socialism and other left-wing stances until the early 1990s, when it followed the lead of like-minded Western social-democratic parties like Britain's New Labour . The party still claims to be democratic-socialist in their party programme. Under the rule of Joseph Muscat , the party shifted to a more centrist position, adopting Third Way policies. A formerly Eurosceptic party, it claims to hold pro-European stances and

5214-416: The party with an absolute majority of votes would be given a majority of parliamentary seats in order to govern. This paved the way for the return of the Nationalist Party to government later that year. The Labour Party performed very badly in the following election in 1992 , losing by nearly 13,000 votes. Mifsud Bonnici resigned due to deteriorating health and on 26 March, Labour elected Alfred Sant as

5293-480: The pronunciation; e.g. nar (fire) is pronounced /nɐːr/ ); and seven diphthongs , /ɐɪ ɐʊ ɛɪ ɛʊ ɪʊ ɔɪ ɔʊ/ , written aj or għi, aw or għu, ej or għi, ew, iw, oj, and ow or għu. The original Arabic consonant system has undergone partial collapse under European influence, with many Classical Arabic consonants having undergone mergers and modifications in Maltese: The modern system of Maltese orthography

5372-519: The realisation of ⟨kh⟩ and ⟨gh⟩ and the imāla of Arabic ā into ē (or ī especially in Gozo), considered archaic because they are reminiscent of 15th-century transcriptions of this sound. Another archaic feature is the realisation of Standard Maltese ā as ō in rural dialects. There is also a tendency to diphthongise simple vowels, e.g., ū becomes eo or eu. Rural dialects also tend to employ more Semitic roots and broken plurals than Standard Maltese. In general, rural Maltese

5451-425: The structure of the Maltese language are recorded in the official guidebook Tagħrif fuq il-Kitba Maltija (English: Knowledge on Writing in Maltese ) issued by the Akkademja tal-Malti (Academy of the Maltese language). The first edition of this book was printed in 1924 by the Maltese government's printing press. The rules were further expanded in the 1984 book, iż-Żieda mat-Tagħrif , which focused mainly on

5530-420: The vote and twenty-four seats out of the possible forty within the Legislative Assembly. Paul Boffa became prime minister whilst Dom Mintoff became Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Reconstruction. The Labour Government introduced Income Tax and Social Services for the first time in Malta . The Labour Party was re-founded in 1949 as a successor to the Labour Party founded in 1921. Paul Boffa , Leader of

5609-443: The weekly Sunday newspaper Kullħadd . The party formerly ran the travel agency Sunrise Travel and the MVNO RedTouch Fone. The Labour Party was founded as the Chamber of Labour ( Italian : Camera del Lavoro ) in 1921 by one of the union branches affiliated with the Imperial Government Workers Union. Band clubs and other organisations were invited to send delegates to the Party's founding meeting on 15 March 1921, significantly,

5688-572: Was decided that the party's official name would be Partit Laburista instead of its former English name, the Malta Labour Party. The previous emblem was changed, although the symbol of the torch was retained. In June 2009, the party garnered 55 percent of the first preference votes in the election for the European Parliament , electing three MEPs who sit with the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats . This result led to Labour

5767-512: Was deemed a mortal sin . In the 1962 elections, this led to the defeat of the Party at the polls as well as a split with the creation of the Christian Workers' Party . Peace with the Church would not be made until 1969 by which time the Christian Workers' Party had disintegrated. The MLP participated in independence talks but disagreed with what was offered, causing them to not participate in

5846-414: Was eliminated, unemployment decreased to historic lows, and an unprecedented period of economic growth occurred. However, he was criticised by figures on both sides of the political spectrum, accused of political opportunism, broken promises on meritocracy and the environment, as well as corruption allegations. On 1 December 2019, Muscat announced his resignation, to take effect after 12 January 2020, due to

5925-583: Was included in both the Thesaurus Polyglottus (1603) and Propugnaculum Europae (1606) of Hieronymus Megiser , who had visited Malta in 1588–1589; Domenico Magri gave the etymologies of some Maltese words in his Hierolexicon, sive sacrum dictionarium (1677). An early manuscript dictionary, Dizionario Italiano e Maltese , was discovered in the Biblioteca Vallicelliana in Rome in

6004-404: Was introduced in 1924. Below is the Maltese alphabet, with IPA symbols and approximate English pronunciation: Final vowels with grave accents (à, è, ì, ò, ù) are also found in some Maltese words of Italian origin, such as libertà ' freedom ' , sigurtà (old Italian: sicurtà ' security ' ), or soċjetà (Italian: società ' society ' ). The official rules governing

6083-491: Was known as President of the Camera del Lavoro (Labour Party) . Although technically leader of the Labour Party, they only assumed this role because of the resignation of the incumbent leader and were not elected to the post. Maltese language Maltese (Maltese: Malti , also L-Ilsien Malti or Lingwa Maltija ) is a Semitic language derived from late medieval Sicilian Arabic with Romance superstrata . It

6162-495: Was recognised as an official language. Maltese has both Semitic vocabulary and words derived from Romance languages , primarily Italian . Words such as tweġiba (Arabic origin) and risposta (Italian origin) have the same meaning ('answer') but are both used in Maltese (rather like 'answer' and 'response' in English. Below are two versions of the same translations, one with vocabulary mostly derived from Semitic root words and

6241-515: Was recognized as the "continuity" candidate instead of Chris Fearne , emphasizing stability, unity and normality, as opposed to the bolder changes advocated by Fearne. Abela is considered to be aligned to traditional Labour's values, such as social housing and free medicine for the elderly. In March 2020, Malta registered its first COVID-19 case. Abela was at first reluctant to close the Malta International Airport , retail outlets and

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