Valletta was jam-packed with people who went to pay their last respects to former Prime Minister and Labour Party leader Dom Mintoff, Malta’s longest serving politician, yesterday. His funeral will be held today at St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta.

Mr Mintoff died at his home in Tarxien last Monday, aged 96. His funeral cortège left Mater Dei Hospital on Thursday afternoon and passed by a number of places he was closely linked to, including his birthplace, Cospicua. At every stop, large crowds of supporters lined the streets in a bid to get a glimpse of the hearse or the coffin, and possibly even touch. He has been lying in state at the Palace in Valletta since Thursday evening, and yesterday, many people started arriving eagerly to pay their last respects as early as 7am.

By 9am, when the guards started allowing people to enter the Palace, people formed a long line that went beyond Cordina Café. The line only got longer later on in the morning, and in fact went as far as the Law Courts building.

Those who paid their last respects included members of Mr Mintoff’s family, President George Abela, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and Mrs Gonzi, Speaker Michael Frendo, Opposition Leader Joseph Muscat, Archbishop Emeritus Joseph Mercieca, members of the PN parliamentary group, and a delegation from the Labour Party.

Mr Mintoff’s body will be lying in state until this morning, starting from 7.30. At 9.40am, the coffin, carried by soldiers, will leave the Palace and will be mounted on a gun carriage on the way to St John’s Co-Cathedral, in a procession led by the Armed Forces of Malta (AFM) band.

The funeral mass is expected to start at 10.30am, and the state funeral cortège should leave St John’s Square at 11.45am. It will stop at the War Memorial in Floriana, where Mr Mintoff’s decorations will be presented back to his daughters, Yana Bland Mintoff and Anne McKenna. A private funeral at the Addolorata Cemetery will follow.

Throughout this week, Mr Mintoff’s supporters described him as “irreplaceable”, the “one and only” and “a second father to the people of Cospicua.”

Considering that he was the longest-serving politician, it is no wonder that the former prime minister was loved by many and equally loathed by others who say they endured a great deal of suffering during the years under his rule. Still, the fact that he was a political giant is undeniable.

His supporters remarked that he always put Malta first, and tried finding ways of helping poor and vulnerable people. Many mentioned the presence of beggars on the streets, particularly outside the dockyard and at City Gate in Valletta. “All that changed with Mintoff.”

He was the father of the Maltese people, they said, describing him as a fighter who was always determined to do what he had in mind.

Mr Mintoff was the man behind a number of social reforms including pensions, the minimum wage, free schooling and medical services, and children’s allowance.

“He was a leader suited for a big country and never feared the superpowers. There will never be a man like Dom Mintoff.”

An architect by profession, he will forever be known as il-perit, a doer by nature, but with policies and antics that flabbergasted many, including his own party. He twice brought down socialist governments, in the 1940s when he toppled Sir Paul Boffa, and again in 1998, when he brought down Alfred Sant’s government.

He surprised everyone with his tenacity and durability in his final years of illness. He was elected every time between 1947 and 1998, and was still active in the run-up to EU accession, which he campaigned against as part of the Front Maltin Inqumu in 2003.

He was loved by many, but many also believe that he was repressive and allowed violence to foment against political opposition. Mr Mintoff battled against several setbacks. His first government resigned in 1958 after the failure of his campaign for integration with Britain.

He then went off at a complete tangent, but was beaten to achieving independence by his much respected rival George Borg Olivier, though he trumped him further down the line by making Malta a republic in 1974 and ‘kicking’ the British out of Malta in 1979. It was an antithesis.

Mr Mintoff was married to a British woman and was educated in the UK. In his years of seeking better deals from the British while Malta was a colony, he even mastered and cultured a Queen’s English accent, though it was still undeniably Maltese.

Within hours of ending discussions with Lord Carrington on the end of British military presence in Malta, Mr Mintoff turned to pariah states. He flew off to China, North Korea, Romania and of course Libya, to forge friendships with dubious friends. But at the same time, he sought to protect Malta from sinking into communism and the influence of the Iron Curtain by maintaining Malta’s neutrality. He forged a close friendship with Muammar Gaddafi who bankrolled Malta in his 1971 tenure.

Malta’s buses became green, as did our passports and Arabic was introduced in the educational curriculum. It was to be one of the decisions which still tarnish him today. Malta’s people quietly rebelled against this pandering and the Labour Party was voted out of office in 1987 in the election following the perverse result which saw his party elected to power in the previous election despite winning less votes than the PN.

Mr Mintoff is still Malta’s youngest prime minister, in 1955 but his clashes with the Church – omnipotent in those days – cost him two elections. When he was returned to power in 1971, something had changed. Mr Mintoff – although still in his own mind battling for the well-being of Maltese citizens – was straying and his ideas were not going down well. But those who still adore him to this day will remember him for raft reforms of social benefits -including better pensions, children’s allowance and the minimum wage.

His government did well in the early 1970s, but controlled imports, political violence and human rights abuses became the norm. Under his tenure, the Times of Malta building was torched and the house of former PN prime minister (opposition leader at the time) Eddie Fenech Adami was ransacked. In 1984, Mr Mintoff handed over to Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici. But he still held sway and in 1998, he brought down the Alfred Sant government.