The Labour Party's electoral commission insisted yesterday it will not allow the leadership contenders to take part in tonight's Xarabank programme and asked the show producers not to air features they had prepared on three of the contenders.

The Commission said that despite the reaction of Xarabank presenter Peppi Azzopardi, it would maintain its position because it deemed that the programme was not compatible with the ground rules it had set for the race.

"While presenters have the right to keep to their format, similarly, the Labour Party or its electoral commission has the right to safeguard and decide the party's exigencies," the commission said, adding that it believes the show would not be fair.

Mr Azzopardi, however, categorically denied this and the producers said the commission's intent was purely to censure and discriminate against the programme.

Two of the central issues are that the commission does not want the contenders to debate among themselves or have an audience. When contacted, Mr Azzopardi said he was prepared to accommodate these requests in part, firstly by interviewing the candidates individually and without the prepared features.

A discussion with an audience would follow, but this was still not acceptable to the commission, despite the fact that the same format was followed by another show on Smash TV, he said.

The commission also insisted that the show should not air the day-in-the-life features it had prepared with Joseph Muscat, George Abela and Evarist Bartolo (the other two initially did not accept to take part).

While Mr Azzopardi insisted that he will not take orders from the commission, the reality is that the whole debacle has put the show in a quandary.

Yesterday evening, in fact, the production team was still deciding what to do about the features, particularly because Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca eventually changed her mind and agreed to participate in a feature but was ordered not to by the commission.

"In this context, even though we originally offered to have this feature with all five contenders, we're debating the fairness of airing the ones we have," Mr Azzopardi said.