From Sash to Speaker: Alex Borg’s Journey from Mr World Malta to PN Leader

Alex Borg – from Mr World Malta to the PN’s new leader
By Hot Malta Newsroom

Sliema’s seaside promenade was unusually busy at 7 a.m. on a humid Tuesday; fishermen still mending nets, pensioners power-walking in numbered bibs, and a small scrum of journalists outside Café du Parc. They were waiting for the man who, only five years ago, was better known for flexing biceps on the MFCC stage than for flexing political muscle in Parliament. Yet this morning, 37-year-old Alex Borg strode out in a navy suit, no tie, and greeted the crowd with the same megawatt smile that once won him the 2019 Mr World Malta sash—only now the sash has been traded for the blue-and-green emblem of the Nationalist Party, freshly elected leader in a landslide 74 % delegate vote.

Borg’s rise is the kind of plot twist Maltese politics loves to export to Netflix. Born to a Mellieħa shopkeeper and a Gozitan primary-school teacher, he spent his twenties juggling gym shifts at Cynergi with guest spots on TVM’s Xarabank. The tipping point came in 2019 when, after scooping the national male-pageant crown, he used the platform to launch “Għaqda Żgħażagħ Mellieħa”, a youth NGO that cleaned up coastal paths and lobbied—successfully—for the removal of single-use plastics at village festas. “People thought I’d just parade in swim trunks,” Borg laughs over a quick espresso. “But I wanted to flex ideas, not abs.”

Those ideas found a home in the PN, a party still bruised from the 2022 electoral defeat and bleeding younger voters to ADPD and abstention. Former leader Bernard Grech recruited Borg in 2020 as a “star candidate” for the European Parliament race; he missed the seat by 1,300 votes, but his 19,000 first-count tally sent shockwaves. Fast-forward to last week’s extraordinary general council at the party’s Pietà headquarters: 846 delegates, a steel band, and a TikTok livestream that peaked at 54 k viewers—record numbers for Maltese internal politics. Borg’s victory speech name-checked Mintoff and Fenech Adami, then pivoted to “building a Malta where kids don’t have to leave to breathe clean air.”

The cultural significance is hard to overstate. For decades, PN leadership has been dominated by lawyers and accountants from Valletta’s merchant elite. Borg, a certified fitness coach who still coaches free Saturday bootcamps on Għadira Bay, represents a seismic shift: a working-class, physically charismatic populist who can quote both the party statute and L-Għanja tal-Poplu lyrics. “He’s the first PN leader who looks like he’d actually help you lift your ħobż biż-żejt cooler onto the Gozo ferry,” quips podcaster Moira Delia.

Local impact is already visible. Since his interim appointment last month, PN clubs in Birkirkara and Żabbar have reported a 35 % spike in youth membership. His “Ħwawetna, Maltin” initiative crowdsources policy via Instagram polls; last week’s (selfie-style) question on short-term rental caps drew 12,000 responses in 48 hours. Critics warn of style over substance, pointing to Borg’s thin parliamentary résumé—just one full term since 2022. Yet even Labour strategists privately concede his crossover appeal: a MaltaToday survey puts him ahead of Robert Abela in the 18-34 age bracket, a demographic Labour has owned since 2008.

Of course, the road to Castille is longer than the ferry to Comino. Borg must unite a party fractured between Grech loyalists and the old guard, while convincing the nation he’s more than a pretty face. His first major test arrives in June’s European election, where he’ll campaign shoulder-to-shoulder with candidate Claudette Buttigieg in a bid to double PN MEP seats. Then comes the 2027 general election, where Labour’s war chest and incumbency loom large.

Still, as the sun climbs over the Valletta bastions and Borg heads to his next school visit in Qrendi, the mood feels electric. One elderly voter clutching a plastic bag of pastizzi sums it up: “We’ve had enough suits shouting at each other. Maybe a man who once posed in budgie-smugglers can actually sell Malta to the world—and make it work for us.” Whether Alex Borg can transform pageant poise into prime-ministerial gravitas remains to be seen, but on this island where festa fireworks light up both skyline and imagination, stranger things have happened. The sash is gone; the mission has just begun.