Labour leader Joseph Muscat is planning to downsize the role of party general secretary and appoint a CEO for the party, sources close to the MLP told The Sunday Times.

These changes are expected to form part of a wide-ranging reform of the party structures that Dr Muscat intends to carry out before the end of the year, the sources said.

It is understood that Jason Micallef's re-election as general secretary last week hastened Dr Muscat's desire to make changes in the upper echelons of the party administration sooner rather than later. And he will call on the National Executive to call an Extraordinary General Meeting in the coming weeks.

Appointing a CEO is likely to mean that the general secretary will be restricted to purely administrative tasks. Mr Micallef's post could even become part-time, though no decisions have as yet been taken.

Dr Muscat had originally intended to make such changes before the party voted for its executive posts last week, but he decided to hold off to give the delegates an opportunity to elect the MLP's top officials.

Senior Labour figures expressed concern after Mr Micallef was elected in a tight race in the early hours last Tuesday - polling a sizeable 370 of the 837 valid votes cast.

The resistance to Mr Micallef was linked to his role in the March general election defeat, Labour's third in a row, which exposed the rifts that developed between him and various officials within the party.

The party's former deputy leader Michael Falzon wrote a scathing seven-page letter attacking Mr Micallef in the week preceding the vote and added he still had no intention of working with the general secretary.

Meanwhile, Environment spokesman Leo Brincat had urged delegates not to vote for the incumbent in a letter to The Sunday Times a week before the party's election and Evarist Bartolo had said after Mr Micallef was reconfirmed: "The more things change, the more they stay the same".