Umno polls likely in Sept but Najib-Hisham vs Muhyiddin-Zahid unlikely - Ku Nan

UPDATED VIDEO INSERTED KUALA LUMPUR - With the Umno elections around the corner, there are still no signs of any contests for the Umno presidency and deputy presidency despite mounting speculation there may be key changes at the party, Tengku Adnan told Malaysia Chronicle on Tuesday.

"From the feedback that I have received and I have been around myself, the two posts - the president and the deputy president, most probably there won't be any contest," Tengku Adnan, the Umno secretary-general and MP for Putrajaya, said at the Parliament House on Tuesday.

When pressed about the persistent rumors of a challenge for the presidency, Adnan said the focus of members was on the 14th general election rather than for party posts in Umno.

However, Adnan or Ku Nan as he is also known, did not fully dismiss the possibility.

"I don't think so because as you are aware we are trying to consolidate. We have started to work for the next general election because as you may be aware only Umno did very well in the last GE. So as far as Barisan Nasional is concerned, we are looking at the strategy to go for in the next GE.

Presidency polls could be in September

Adnan expects the Umno presidency poll to be held sometime in September, although at this point in time, no final decision has been.

"We are waiting until August 31 to wait for all the branches to finish their election. The decision will be made by the Umno supreme council with the advice of the secretary and the management committee's advice," he said.

Some 148,000 to 150,000 Umno delegates are due to vote, the largest-ever number in the conservative Malay party's history. Although it is the largest political party in the country and claims a membership of some 3 million, so far only about 2,000 delegates have been empowered to vote for the key national leadership.

There have been widespread expectations that Prime Minister Najib Razak will face a challenge from his deputy Muhyiddin for the Umno presidency.

Speculation has swirled that Najib might pick as his running mate his cousin Hishammuddin Hussein, the Defense Minister who is also an Umno vice president, while Muhyiddin might team up with Home Minister Zahid Hamidi.

We didn't bully MCA or MIC

Umno won 88 seats in Malaysia's 222-seat federal Parliament during the May 5 general election, the most by a party in the nationwide ballot that was marred by widespread claims of vote-rigging and cheating.

But apart from accusations of electoral fraud, some analysts have attributed Umno's winning streak to a return of Malay votes to its fold, while there have also been claims that slanted seat allocations within the Barisan Nasional coalition itself helped Umno to score big.

Adnan, however, refuted the allegations that MCA and MIC may have been pressured to give up the 'winnable' seats to Umno, the coalition boss which has called the shots in the government since 1957.

"It's not fair if you look at it that way. We have a quota system. We still gave our components seats. There are seats which we gave to MCA and they still lost those seats which were Umno seats. We have a system in Barisan Nasional, where every decision is made on a collective basis, with consensus. It's not about individual party, whether Umno is big, MCA is second, MIC is third. We all work on consensus basis," said Adnan.

Malaysia Chronicle