A general election is called early when there is no serious alternative, former Labour Prime Minister Alfred Sant writes today.

Writing in his blog on The Malta Independent today, Dr Sant said: “The perspective is mainly that of the national interest, but you have to take into account too the interests of the party you represent.

Dr Sant himself had to call an early election just 22 months into his term as Prime Minister in the second half of the 1990s, following an internal dispute with another former PL Prime Minister, Dom Mintoff, which destabilised his one-seat majority in Parliament.

In his article, which may be read here, Dr Sant goes into the reasons why he was forced to call an early election in 1998, without mentioning Mintoff.