Labour leader Joseph Muscat’s recent statement that he will be calling an extraordinary general conference to implement changes in the way the party structures work have raised quite a political storm in the hot weeks of August.

Although he stopped short from giving many details as to what proposals he will be putting forward, Dr Muscat made it clear that he wants to see all sectors of society being represented in the party structures, as well as review the role of certain officials while at the same time ensuring more modern management.

Whether the changes will be cosmetic and whether they will bring about the necessary changes in the MLP structure – responsible as it was for the defeat in the last election – remains to be seen, and judgement will be passed only when Dr Muscat’s set of recommendations is made public and, later, implemented.

The real question at this stage is why Dr Muscat announced the need to hold another extraordinary general conference to change the party’s structure after the elections for the top administrative posts were held.

His argument is that the administrative elections would have had to be postponed if the conference on structural changes had been called now and that he would have conditioned the delegates if such a reform had been implemented before the elections.

But this is precisely why the structural changes being advocated by Dr Muscat should have been brought forward before the administrative elections. A leader should tell his own people that he wants to plug the holes of the party structure before elections for the top party positions are held, not after. But then, Dr Muscat did not know what was about to take place.

As it happened, the MLP elected its administration – one cannot really call it new considering that the top posts remained in the hands of the same people – which will have to work on the structures that still need to be decided. It would have been better to formulate the structures, and then elect the people to implement it.

Delegates should have first voted on the new structures and then choose who they think would have been the right people to work within that structure they decided upon.

This is, of course, very much like the chicken and egg story. But, in this case, the way Dr Muscat made public his intentions just one week after the elections for the administrative posts were held leads to suspicions that it was a knee-jerk reaction by the MLP leader. And this is perhaps why Dr Muscat did not mention any structural changes before – simply because it was only afterwards that he realised that such a change was needed, and he had no plans for structural changes if the delegates had chosen other people to occupy the administrative posts.

It is evident that Dr Muscat was not happy with the outcome of the results of the elections, and is now seeking a new set-up to be able to give the party a new look that the administrative elections did not give. His words that last week’s elections “hastened” the need for change is clearly an indication that Dr Muscat was expecting a different result.

The fact that one of Dr Muscat’s suggestions is to change the role of officials in elected posts also exposes the MLP leader’s concern about the way the party administration functioned in the run-up to the March election.

While at it, the party should also look into the way its administrative posts are taken up. It is rather ironic that the leader and deputy leaders need an absolute majority of delegates’ votes to be elected, and then top officials need only a relative majority to win their seat.