Labour had a carefully planned campaign strategy, approved unanimously by the party's administration in 2007, which was basically ignored in the actual run-up to the March general election, the analysis of the election defeat commissioned by the party reveals.

Ironically, some of the ideas in this discarded electoral plan - such as a proposal for Alfred Sant to have chat sessions with young people online - parallelled those hailed in the PN camp as having been pivotal in securing the determining youth vote. The reasons why the more innovative ideas of this campaign plan were not adopted, according to the report, varied from insufficient budget to "the internet did not have a decisive role".

The 99-page document, seen by The Times, will be discussed by the party's national executive this morning, before it is released officially on Monday evening. It paints a picture of a fragmented and disorganised party machine.

In effect, most of the observations made in the report, and highlighted as reasons for the party's third general election defeat in a row, were made by sympathisers and foes alike before, during and after the election: the fragmentation and "self-destructive" dynamic of the different party cliques; the mishandling of issues such as the surcharge; the reception class; overtime proposals; and Alfred Sant's undermined credibility.

On the last point, the report blames the 1998 and 2003 electoral defeats and Dr Sant's reversal of his decision to resign for having dented his credibility in the eyes of the electorate. This led to what was described as a mood of "antipathy" towards the leader, which in turn resulted in an organisational setting characterised by suspicion and paranoia.

The rigidity and lack of a clear and coordinated purpose, in turn, brought about the sort of mixed messages the party's leaders were sending, with a brand that portrayed a modern dynamic party and speeches that included gaffes such as Dr Sant's "Gooonzi" speech, Charles Mangion's mention of different DNA and Michael Falzon's chants of "lions of change".

Crucially, the report asks why recommendations made in the 2003 document analysing that year's electoral defeat were never taken up.

Most of the damage resulted from the campaign, the report concludes.

In fact, the weeks before the March 8 election reinforced the perception that if the party could not run a campaign it could hardly be fit to run the country, the report notes.

Despite having been warned in 2007 by the former campaign manager Claude Falzon - who resigned some six months before the election to take on a job in Brussels - that the run-up to the polls would make or break Labour's chances, most of his recommendations were left to gather dust.

A new campaign manager, Benny Borg Bonello, was appointed but, even though Mr Falzon returned to help with the campaign, once the election was announced, there was little coordination between the two.

Indeed, the lack of coordination emerges as a characteristic feature of how Labour was running the campaign, with Mr Borg Bonello quoted in the report saying: "Had I known about this structure, I wouldn't have come back."

The strategy group running the campaign was the party's leadership - Dr Sant, his deputies Charles Mangion and Michael Falzon, general secretary Jason Micallef and party president Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi.

All the decisions were taken by this group. And even though some suggestions were made by the campaign manager, Mr Borg Bonello would often have to wait for orders in order to act - even on the billboards. Moreover, there was overconfidence about Labour's prospects of winning, which led to a misplaced complacency, particularly on the part of one member of the leadership, the report says without mentioning his name.

Again, the report points out that although there were some issues with the precision of the party's surveys, there were ample warnings that it had a problem with the youth vote and that it was losing support on the main issues such as health care, education, environment and roads, a few months before the campaign started - and the party simply did not react fast enough.

The strategy group was made up of the people on the campaign trail - which in the case of the deputy leaders included their personal campaigns as candidates - and this meant that the party was finding it difficult to evaluate what the PN was doing and react in time.

In this connection, the 2003 report had recommended a mechanism of think-tanks and focus groups to ensure that the strategy team is constantly given feedback, but there seemed to have been none of this in 2008.

Along with the untimely departure of Mr Falzon, and the fact that his plan was not utilised, the report also highlights Dr Sant's medical condition as a factor which impacted the campaign.

His effort to plough on while recovering from major surgery was praised by those interviewed by the commission. However, it did affect the campaign, which had to be toned down to make the pace more acceptable - even though, the report stresses, most of the 2007 campaign plan could still have been implemented.

In organisational terms the report is also highly critical of the party's electoral office, which is described as having worked on its own and not as part of the campaign.

As opposed to the PN's ELCOM, which identified disgruntled voters with precision and approached them one by one to sort out their grievances, the data of Labour's electoral office was riddled with inaccuracies, by as much as 20 per cent of the database, the report notes.

The office was warned about this, but appears to have done nothing.

There seems to have been no attempt to analyse the electorate, especially the 32,000 or so new votes, the report says, citing as evidence the fact that "prominent members of the party who form part of the leadership" were not familiar with these figures.

Contrary to common perception, the people who did not vote were not all Nationalists but were split more or less down the middle between Labour and PN, while it is estimated that over 7,000 former Labour-sympathising voters stayed home on the day.

Moreover, the party's assistant electoral commissioners were described as inexperienced and unsuited; given the job "to suit clique needs" and not out of merit, the rapporteurs were told.

And unlike the Nationalist Party, Labour was not proactive in trying to bring sympathising expats over to vote. Despite a request, for instance, there was no effort to bring over a group from Dubai.

The document also delves into the decision to extend polling time by an hour on election day - a decision which, the report says, was taken on Labour's side by Michael Falzon without consulting the leader or his counterpart.

Dr Falzon has strongly denied that the decision lost the party the general election, but the report argues that the decision did not favour Labour. He had argued that the localities where the voting was extended, Senglea, Żejtun, Marsa, Żebbuġ, Żurrieq and Valletta, were mostly Labour-leaning. But while the PN and the Prime Minister himself were chasing votes by telephone, there was no similar, large-scale attempt being made on Labour's part, the report says.

Why Labour lost

• Recommendations of the 2003 electoral defeat report were not implemented
• Rival cliques sabotaged the party's common goal
• Campaign was disorganised, uncoordinated and too negative
• The leadership led the campaign on its own
• The party's electoral office was disorganised and ignored warnings it was given of incorrect data
• Some 7,300 former Labour-leaning voters stayed home
• Decision to extend voting by an hour favoured PN
• Post 2003 there was a mood of "antipathy" towards the leader, which in turn resulted in an organisational setting characterised by suspicion and paranoia