Four decades ago, the Nationalist Party saw electoral victory snatched away when it received an absolute majority of votes but a minority of parliamentary seats. It signalled one of the darkest chapters of Malta’s political history. Matthew Xuereb spoke to some of the protagonists. In the run-up to the 1981 general election, Nationalist leader Eddie Fenech Adami was adamant of ridding the country of Labour’s “pervasive control”. After a decade in charge, Prime Minister Dom Mintoff was credited with overhauling Malta’s social infrastructure, but he was accused of compromising Malta’s independence with questionable agreements with international dictators as his supporters and even ministers ran amok. The election date was set for December 12 and Malta held its breath. “I did my best to paint Mintoff as a drowning man who was clutching at straws,” Fenech Adami wrote in his biography, adding that the electoral campaign was a strong one, despite the marked bias against the PN on the state broadcasting media. Fenech Adami, contesting his first election as leader and two years after his house was attacked by Labour supporters, said his party was seeing an escalation of anti-PN...