Sitting MPs could be banned from Labour's deputy leadership race, with party insiders saying Robert Abela is considering changing the election rules. 

Chris Cardona finally quit the role on Wednesday, the prime minister and Labour leader told reporters outside the Auberge de Castille. The resignation letter has not been published. 

Cardona was under intense pressure to resign amid allegations that he played a role in the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia.  

Abela said the process to replace Cardona has already started and a general conference to elect a new deputy leader for party affairs will be held in the second week of July. 

However, party insiders said that Abela has floated the possibility of changing the party’s elections rule book, and banning MPs from the position.

Labour executive member and Mtarfa mayor Daniel Attard had made the suggestion on Tuesday. The proposed move has already been publicly endorsed by a cabinet minister and a former PL general secretary. 

Rule reversal

MPs had not been able to put in a bid for the position until 2016, when then-party leader Joseph Muscat changed the rules and gave a speech which many in the party had interpreted as a message of his desire to see then-minister Konrad Mizzi by his side in the leadership.  

Konrad Mizzi (right) had a short-lived stint as deputy leader under Joseph Muscat. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

Mizzi was elected to the post in a one-horse race but resigned shortly afterwards when the Panaman Papers scandal revealed he owned a secret offshore company. 

At present, the party statute says that the race for a deputy leader for party affairs is open for any Labour member. Now party insiders say the party could reverse the 2016 changes to the rules. 

One source said the move would mean that the deputy leader for party affairs would be able to focus entirely on the party, rather than splitting their time between parliamentary business and PL matters. 

“It’s even worse if the person is also a member of cabinet, then they have even less time for the party,” the source said. 

Runners and riders

Daniel Micallef, left, regarded as an early favourite to replace Chris Cardona.

And, although it is still early days, multiple Labour contacts have told Times of Malta that Daniel Micallef, the current party president, was seen as an “ideal candidate” for the post by a number of Labour heavyweights.  

However, if the election rules were not changed, it is understood several MPs have expressed an interest.

Newly-elected MP Ian Castaldi Paris woud be among them, having already shown he is keen to make a bid among insiders.  

Castaldi Paris, the former Nationalist Party mayor of Lija who defected to Labour in 2015, took up the Parliamentary seat vacated by Cardona earlier this year.  

Meanwhile, Cabinet sources said that if the rules were not changed, then there would likely even been a few ministers that would be keen to snap up the position.  

"The deputy leadership is a post that can raise your profile so I'm sure there will be ministers keen on the job," a source said. 

Support for proposed changes 

On Wednesday afternoon Justice minister Edward Zammit Lewis came out in support of changing the party statute to prohibit MPs from contesting the deputy leadership.  

Zammit Lewis said that as someone who had the Labour Party’s best interests at heart, he believed that the next deputy leader should be entirely focused on the party.  

Shortly afterwards former PL general secretary Jason Micallef also said he supported the possible amendments to the election rules.  

He appealed to Labour delegates to back a movement to ensure that the next deputy leader is not an MP