Rising to office as a protégé of Mizzi and Sir Ugo P. Mifsud, Borg Olivier believed in the economic and social development of Malta as a viable independent state and in the necessity of a mixed economy.

Under his leadership, average living standards rose steadily as Malta began to decouple from a fortress economy purely dependent on the British military establishment.

His uncle Salvatore was speaker of the house and then a senator, and led the opposition to Lord Strickland's Constitutional Party in the 1920s before becoming a cabinet minister during the premiership of Ugo P. Mifsud in the early 1930s.

As a university student, Borg Olivier was elected President of the Comitato Permanente Universitario until it was suppressed by the British colonial government in March 1935.

The Partito Nazionale of Enrico Mizzi and Sir Ugo P. Mifsud, the party chosen by Borg Olivier, came under strict scrutiny once war broke out in Europe in 1939.

E' stato precisamente il notaio Giorgio a presentare a conclusione del magnifico comizio, due grandi mazzi di fiori ai nostri due capi Sir Ugo e Enrico Mizzi, a nome di quella laboriosa e patriottica popolazione rurale[citation needed]Borg Olivier played an active role in this election, addressing political meetings in various villages, such as Birkirkara and Bormla.

The obstructionist strategies of the parties in opposition made Borġ Olivier bid the Governor, Sir Gerald Creasy, to call for fresh elections.

These were held in May 1951, and as a result of them, Borg Olivier formed a coalition Government with the Malta Workers' Party, which was led by erstwhile PM Paul Boffa.

On the political front, these years were marked with the attempt for a proper definition of Malta's constitutional status and relationship with the United Kingdom.

[citation needed] The Nationalist Congress, held 24 April 1955, passed a resolution deploring the "scandalous and unconstitutional interference of the Governor.

After Borg Olivier's refusal to form a government, the governor was forced to declare a state of public emergency in Malta, suspending the 1947 Constitution.

It was soon made known that the Attorney General Prof John J. Cremona, was working on a draft constitution while it was announced that a Malta Independence Conference was to be held at Marlborough House, London.

Delegates from all the political parties led by Borg Olivier, Dom Mintoff, Toni Pellegrini, Herbert Ganado and Mabel Strickland attended.

Borg Olivier's shrewdness as a politician enabled him to use the ongoing religious conflict between the Labour Party and the Maltese church, headed by Archbishop Mikiel Gonzi, to his advantage.

[12] This was the tail end of the Maltese Politico-religious dispute, comparable in some ways to the questions arising thirty years earlier, in Strickland's time.

Although there was a personality clash between Archbishop Gonzi and Mintoff, other issues of power and jurisdiction were clearly becoming evident in the growing tension between the ecclesiastical sphere and the state.

Mass hysteria and campaigns of almost sectarian proportions ensued, with Mintoff and several of his Labour Party colleagues being denied the sacraments and demonised.

Gonzi wanted to check both Mintoff and Borġ Olivier, to prevent the loss of the Church's guarded status under a new political system.

[13] From his London hotel on 20 August 1962, Borg Olivier addressed to the secretary of state for the colonies a formal and urgent request for Malta's independence.

It was the Nationalists under Borg Olivier who were now seen by the British as the better able to reassure the West, and to offer the best chances for democracy, security, and stability in an independent state.

[14] After a controversial referendum in May 1964, in which a majority of the votes cast approved the proposed independence constitution, in July a full round of talks with all the five political parties concerned, led by Borg Olivier as prime minister, was held at Marlborough House in London.

The majority view was hindered by disagreements as to constitutional form, mainly concerning civil and secular entitlements against traditional Roman Catholic presumptions and fears, but one of Mintoff's six points also endorsed the potential justification of violence.

Independence was part of a package which included retaining British defence facilities for ten years and financial aid to the tune of £51 million.

On Independence Day, 21 September 1964, the degree of Doctor of Literature (Honoris Causa) was conferred on Borg Olivier by the Royal University of Malta.

Borġ Olivier opposed, but without success, the growing tendency of Mintoff's most extreme supporters to resort to violence as a political weapon.

Among Borg Olivier's fellow party members, a younger generation had emerged by this time which considered him physically and politically incapable of winning back popular support from Mintoff.

[17] Borg Olivier could still count on the support of his relatives in the party, as well as on those politicians who, like Cachia Zammit, had been members of his 1962-1971 cabinets and were still in the legislature.

After Mintoff's re-election in 1976, the general feeling among most Nationalists was that the party could succeed only if it acquired a young, genuinely devout, dynamic Catholic as a new leader.

A sense of betrayal marked his attitude, given that Fenech Adami had been encouraged by Borg Olivier to remain in politics after suffering two personal electoral defeats.

A monument in honour of Borġ Olivier was erected in Castille Square, Valletta in 1989, as part of the events commemorating the 25th anniversary of independence.