Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, KUOM (17 July 1933 – 5 November 2022) was a Maltese politician who served as Prime Minister of Malta from December 1984 to May 1987.

[1][2] Karmenu was born on 17 July 1933 at Cospicua to Lorenzo Mifsud Bonnici and Catherine Buttigieg,[2] in a family strongly anchored in the Nationalist Party.

Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici was thus co-opted into Parliament in May 1983 upon the resignation of Paul Xuereb, and assigned the Ministry of Employment and Social Services,[2] without ever standing for election.

Several commentators consider that Mintoff hand-picked Mifsud Bonnici to prevent the election of other, less amenable, internal rivals at the helm of the party.

[citation needed] In 1985, Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici was the lead negotiator in the hijacking of EgyptAir Flight 648 in which 60 of the 92 passengers were killed.

[3][4] Mifsud Bonnici narrowly lost the 1987 elections [5] and was made to carry most of the blame for the defeat - which might have had a role in the heart attack he suffered soon after.

They proposed instead an alternative association agreement, or "partnership", reviving an earlier Mintoff vision of Malta as the "Switzerland of the Mediterranean".