Labour's extraordinary general conference will convene next Friday to decide on a landmark proposal that could pave the way for the next leaders of the party to be chosen by its members as well as by delegates.
It will be the first meeting since Labour's defeat in the March 8 general election, which led to the resignation of party leader Alfred Sant.
The MLP's national executive voted for a motion to hold the conference after a four-and-a-half hour session that ended at 11 p.m. The motion was presented in the form of a petition by a group of delegates who took up the suggestion floated publicly by former deputy leader George Abela when he announced his candidature for the top post.
The petition was submitted to the party's president Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi last week. In it, some 120 of the 900 party delegates called for an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) to be held to discuss whether to allow paid-up members to vote for the next leader along with the delegates. The number exceeded the 10 per cent required by the party statute to force an EGM.
If approved, this motion will open the vote to Labour's current 19,000 odd members.
Labour sources said there had been a movement in the past weeks advocating that the executive should delay the EGM till after the leadership election. The statute, in fact, does not stipulate a time frame within which the national executive should call an EGM when faced with a petition. However, pressure was brought to bear, even by some key leadership hopefuls, against the idea.
Yesterday, sources present at the meeting said the opposition to the motion being discussed before June 5 was very fickle, despite the protracted discussion.
Despite having recently been placed on the party's agenda by Dr Abela's public pronouncement in favour of a change in the system, there had already been a movement within the party lobbying for such a change on how the leadership is chosen.
The proposal was also discussed by the executive following Dr Abela's public pronouncement on March 18, but it received a lukewarm reception then.
Labour insiders had then told The Times that the biggest hurdles to implement the change at this point in time were of a logistical nature, particularly as the party knew that a number of its members were also members of the Nationalist Party.
Nonetheless, the motion's leading supporter, Marlene Pullicino Orlando - who ran on the PN ticket in 2003 because she favoured EU membership - has said that it does not really matter if there are a number of members who feel at home in both parties.
She argues that Labour needs to appeal to a section of people who voted for the Nationalist Party anyway.
She has also proposed that the EGM should have to discuss a cut-off date to avoid having people registering as members simply to be able to vote in this election - and, therefore, potentially opening the door to abuse.