The departure of Clayton Bartolo as Tourism Minister last Tuesday was yet another resignation of a member of Labour's Parliamentary Group, as the party continues to struggle in its own scandal-induced shadow.
Since coming to power in 2013, 11 ministers or MPs (and a prime minister) have been forced into resignations owing to scandals that they have been involved in - effectively one politician every year.
From a minister's driver taking a pot shot at a civilian, to ethics' breaches, to being pressured by mass street protests, The Malta Independent on Sunday looks at who has had to step down, why, and where they are now.
Manuel Mallia (December 2014)
Manuel Mallia was the first victim of Joseph Muscat's pledge of better standards in government when the Labour Party came to power in March 2013.
The scandal came after his driver - Mallia, at the time, was Home Affairs Minister - shot at a civilian after a traffic collision. An inquiry found that Mallia had not tried to cover-up the incident, but still said that he had a duty to see that an official statement issued about the incident was accurate.
Muscat asked Mallia to resign, but he did not oblige - and so the prime minister gave him the boot himself.
Mallia later said that he felt that he had been made a scapegoat and Muscat himself had later said that sacking Mallia was a mistake. He would remain a Labour MP until 2021, when he stepped down to become Malta's high commissioner to London.
Michael Falzon (January 2016)
Michael Falzon was the parliamentary secretary for Planning and Simplification of Administrative Processes when what is now known as the Gaffarena Scandal erupted at the start of 2016.
A National Audit Office report had found that Falzon and other officials had failed to safeguard the government's interests in a deal on the expropriation of a property in Old Mint Street in Valletta.
The NAO found that Mark Gaffarena - the owner of the property in question - pocketed €516,000 in cash and €2.9m in land despite the property itself being worth €944,500. There was "collusion" found between Gaffarena and the Lands Department, for which Falzon was politically responsible.
Falzon contested the NAO's report, but resigned regardless. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat filed court action for the agreement to be rescinded and land transfers to be revoked, which they were in 2018.
Falzon meanwhile returned to Cabinet after the 2017 election and today serves as the Minister for Social Policy and Children's Rights.
Konrad Mizzi (November 2019)
The resignation of the scandal-ridden Konrad Mizzi was, in the eyes of many, a long-time coming when he did finally step down in November 2019.
A man who burst onto the political scene out of nowhere, Mizzi's problems started when he was the only European minister to be named in the Panama Papers in 2016. Whereas he should have arguably stepped down (or been removed) there and then, Muscat opted to defend him and instead relegated him from Energy and Health Minister to Minister within the Office of the Prime Minister.
After the 2017 election, Mizzi was appointed as Tourism Minister where he proclaimed that he had turned Air Malta into a profit-making airline. However, when Yorgen Fenech - the businessman implicated in a secret deal to profiteer off Malta's new power station through a web of secret companies linked to Mizzi and Keith Schembri - was arrested in connection with Daphne Caruana Galizia's murder, Mizzi finally stepped down.
He had then said that he was resigning "in the national interest" and "out of a sense of political duty, in order not to distract from an effective and serene leadership of the country".
Mizzi remained in Labour's Parliamentary group until Muscat's successor, Robert Abela, booted him from the Labour Party completely. Mizzi remained an independent MP until 2022, when he did not stand for re-election. He is facing criminal charges in connection with the now-rescinded deal to transfer three public hospitals to a private company.
Joseph Muscat (December 2019)
Revered as a messiah by some, reviled as a pariah by others, the resignation of Joseph Muscat as prime minister was in many ways unprecedented.
The man whose leadership brought the Labour Party to new heights, who never lost an election and set up a country with record economic growth was also the man who was later named as the most corrupt person of the year by an international group of journalists. Muscat has been accused of allowing the proliferation of a culture of impunity, which ultimately ended up with a journalist being assassinated.
It was this assassination that proved to be his undoing. The arrest of Yorgen Fenech, whose close ties to those at the highest echelons of power had been well-documented, in connection with the murder and the questioning of Muscat's chief of staff Keith Schembri in connection with the same case prompted protests which saw thousands take to the streets to call on Muscat to quit.
Muscat finally relented and announced that he would step down in December 2019. A month later, the Labour Party elected Robert Abela to take his place and Muscat gave up the premiership. He would remain a backbench MP until October 2020, when he stepped down from Parliament.
Like Mizzi, he has since been charged with bribery, corruption and money laundering in connection with the Vitals hospitals' concession. He has pleaded not guilty and has called the proceedings against him a "political vendetta".
Justyne Caruana (November 2020)
In many ways, Justyne Caruana bears no fault for the circumstances surrounding her resignation from Cabinet in January 2020.
She had just been appointed as Gozo Minister by new Prime Minister Abela, but days later the close ties between her then husband Silvio Valletta - who at the time was Police Deputy Commissioner - and Yorgen Fenech were exposed.
Caruana said that she was "totally extraneous" to what had been reported about her husband and that she was not in any way connected to the incident, but regardless, her position in Cabinet was deemed as no longer tenable, and she resigned.
She and her husband separated, and she remained a backbencher until she was appointed as Education Minister in November 2020.
Chris Cardona (April 2020)
Chris Cardona was no stranger to controversy during his tenure in Cabinet. He was involved in a number of controversies while he was Economy minister, including having allegedly attended a brothel in Germany, an allegation which he denies.
He, however, maintained his place in Joseph Muscat's Cabinet till the end, only for Muscat's successor Abela to exclude him from his first Cabinet in January 2020.
Cardona resigned from Parliament a few months later in April 2020, as court testimony started to implicate him in the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder.
He had already been questioned by police in connection with a letter related to the murder - one which Cardona described as a "false and cruel plot" to frame him, an interpretation which investigators agreed with. That had led him to "suspend himself" as minister, but he was reinstated a week later.
Despite his resignation from Parliament, Cardona remained Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. In June 2020, Abela made implicit suggestions that Cardona should step down as PL Deputy Leader, but the by then former MP did not take the bait until Abela outwardly asked him to resign. Cardona stepped down the day after.
He has since maintained a low profile, only commenting on political affairs more recently in the aftermath of the 2024 European Parliament elections. He has always denied any connection with the Caruana Galizia murder.
Rosianne Cutajar (February 2021)
When Rosianne Cutajar was elected for the first time in 2017 she was Parliament's youngest MP and while she remained on the backbenches until January 2020, PM Abela included her in his first Cabinet as the parliamentary secretary for Civil Rights and Reforms.
That promotion would only last around a year: media reports in February 2021 revealed how she had benefitted from a property deal involving Yorgen Fenech, and soon became subject of an ethics investigation.
Her resignation was pending the outcome of that ethics probe, but it became permanent a few months later in July after Cutajar was found to have breached Parliamentary ethics.
Cutajar would remain on the backbenches, but in April 2023 author Mark Camilleri published WhatsApp chats between Cutajar and Fenech - messages which detailed the close and intimate relationship between the MP and the businessman, but also included details of Cutajar's annoyance at not being included in Joseph Muscat's Cabinet and of her wanting to "pig out" like her other colleagues by taking on a consultancy job.
Similar to Cardona, Abela - when asked about the scandal - first made a blanket statement that all MPs should shoulder their responsibility and that nobody was bigger than the party or the country, and when that didn't have any sway on Cutajar, he started proceedings within the party structures for her to be expelled.
In the end, Cutajar did tender her resignation - 50 minutes before the meeting that would have seen her booted was set to start - and she remained an independent MP.
Since the Labour Party's shock loss of support in the June elections, Abela opened the door for her to return - but on the condition of an apology. That apology never came, but nonetheless Cutajar was welcomed back into the fold as a Labour MP in August.
Silvio Grixti (December 2021)
Silvio Grixti never held a position in Cabinet, however he had been an MP for just over four years when he suddenly announced his resignation in December 2021.
It soon emerged that Grixti - a doctor by profession - was under investigation in connection with the issuing of irregular medical sick notes. It later emerged that Grixti was being investigated on suspicion of being the key figure behind a fraud racket concerning the government's disability benefits.
Those who received these benefits have told police that Grixti and others gave them documents with forged signatures which were then presented - and ultimately accepted - by the medical board which governs these benefits.
Grixti was charged in connection with the racket in March. Prime Minister Abela has since said that he had advised Grixti to hand in his resignation when he had learnt that he was under investigation.
Justyne Caruana (December 2021)
Justyne Caruana is the only Cabinet member to have resigned twice in connection with a scandal, and while the first time may not have been down to her doing, the second one certainly was.
She stepped down in December 2021 - just two days after Silvio Grixti - after being found guilty of an ethics breach by granting a €15,000 contract to her partner, former footballer Daniel Bogdanovic, for the carrying out of a study that he had no training or qualifications to do over three months.
Her resignation came - again - after Abela said that "everyone should shoulder their own responsibility".
In her resignation announcement, Caruana said that she would also not be contesting the 2022 general election, which was when she departed Parliament.
At the start of this year Abela named Caruana as someone that Maltese politics had "lost" as he attempted to court her to come back to the party as a candidate for the European Parliament elections - but Caruana merely thanked Abela from the comments, and did not return.
Chris Fearne (May)
For years, Minister Chris Fearne was one of the most respected people in Cabinet, but when charges were issued against him in connection with the Vitals hospitals concession it was inevitable that the man who had contested Robert Abela to be prime minister would have to resign.
Indeed, he did just that in May, three days after charges against him and a myriad of others, were filed. He was Minister for European Funds at the time, having been shifted off the Health portfolio in anticipation of being Malta's nominee for European Commissioner later in the year.
Abela, who had publicly defended Fearne as the hospitals' deal blowback bit his government, pleaded with Fearne to reconsider his decision - but the doctor, who was also deputy prime minister at the time, did not.
He remains a backbencher and has also stepped down as the Labour Party's deputy leader.
Clayton Bartolo (November)
Clayton Bartolo's resignation came after two strikes - not one - in the same space.
In the first instance, he was found to have breached ethics in connection with the engagement of his wife, Amanda Muscat, as a policy consultant with the Gozo Ministry. Muscat had initially served as Bartolo's personal assistant, but when she and the minister became romantically involved, a decision was made for her to move jobs.
With this in mind, she was transferred to the Gozo Ministry as a consultant, with a pay packet which saw her net around €68,000 - €16,000 more than her previous role. However, she was not qualified for the role and an investigation showed that rather than doing what she was paid to do, she continued to work as Bartolo's PA.
Bartolo apologised for any transgressions people felt he may have committed and Abela said that the apology was sufficient and the matter could end there.
However, the second strike came soon after as it was revealed that the FIAU had flagged a €50,000 payment to Bartolo's wife as a possible kickback from an Italian company for a deal with the Malta Tourism Authority, which fell under Bartolo's remit as Tourism Minister.
Bartolo's resignation was announced a few hours before that scandal came to light, after the prime minister had received questions from the media about it. He is now an independent MP, having been expelled from the Labour Party parliamentary group entirely.