Prime Minister of Malta. Valletta born Giorgio Borg Olivier received his education at the lyceum and later at the Royal University of Malta, graduating as a doctor of laws in 1937. Elected to the Council of Government two years later, with the return of Responsible Government in 1947, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly and was later Deputy Leader of the Opposition. In 1950, he held the post of Minister of Works and Reconstruction and the post of Minister of Education in the nationalist minority government led by Dr. Enrico Mizzi. Succeeding the latter as leader of the Nationalist Party, Prime Minister and Minister of Justice in a Minority Government following his death in December 1950, after the general elections of May 1951, he formed a coalition government with the Malta Works Party. Head of the new government, he retained the Ministry of Works and Reconstruction. Re-elected in 1953, he acted as head of a coalition government with the Malta Worker's Party until he was defeated in 1955. Opposition leader from 1955 till 1958, he led the Nationalist Party delegations in June and September 1955 for the Malta Round Table Conference and in November 1958, the party delegation for talks in London about the restoration of self government. Following the February 1962 election, Borg Olivier agreed to form a government after obtaining important amendments to the constitution. In addition to being Prime Minister, he assumed the portfolio of Minister of Economic Planning and Finance. In June, he made a formal request for Independence and in September of the same year he attended the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference. On July 13, 1963, he headed a government delegation for the Malta Independence Conference at the end of which it was announced that Malta would become Independent. Appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Sylvester by Pope Paul VI on January 25 of the following year, after a series of talks with the British Government and the preparation of a constitution for the independence of Malta, which was endorsed by Parliament and approved by the people in a referendum held in February 1964, Dr. Giorgio Borg Olivier set September 21, as Malta's Independence Day. On the latter he was conferred a degree of doctor of literature 'honoris causa' by the Royal University of Malta. The following November, he was received by Pope Paul VI and appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Pius IX. Appointed became Minister of Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in addition to his duties as Prime Minister and Minister of Economic Planning and Finance in 1965, in the general elections held in March of the following year, the Nationalist Party was again returned to power with Borg Olivier as Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. Decorated with the Grand Cross of Merit of the Order of Malta by the Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Hospitallier Order of St. John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta on June 14, 1968, the loss of two successive elections, those of 1971 and 1976, brought about his downfall. Resigning from leader of the Nationalist Party in 1977, he passed away at his Sliema home. His funeral was followed by thousands of people who went to Valletta to pay their last tributes while his body was laid out in state. A monument in his honour was erected in Castille Square, Valletta, in 1989 as part of the events commemorating the twenty fifth anniversary of the Independence of Malta.