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THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER He is not going to defend his party president’s position but Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s silence on the matter is spawning several theories and prompting some division chiefs to nudge him along by openly declaring support for Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak even before the divisional meetings.
At the emergency supreme council meeting last Friday, the Prime Minister announced that the party elections would be postponed from December to March and that he would state before Oct 9 whether he would accept nominations for the top position. His decision to keep his options open has set off speculation that he is still harbouring a desire to contest the party polls, a move which will see him face off with Najib. Senior party officials and his supporters have met Abdullah since Friday and the indication they get is that he is not interested in defending his position, though he believes that the “groundswell’’ of anti-Abdullah sentiment among divisions was manufactured by his political enemies and several highly-placed individuals in the party whom he trusted. A senior party official told the Malaysian Insider: “Pak Lah is very calm about the situation. He knows that he has been stitched up but he is not going to fling mud or contest the polls knowing that it will lead to a split and weakened Umno.’’ Abdullah has been under pressure to step down since March 8, when the Barisan Nasional lost its two-thirds majority in Parliament and control of Selangor, Perak, Kedah and Penang to Pakatan Rakyat, an alliance of PKR-DAP-PAS. He managed to head off the critics with the support of Najib, and cobbled together a transition plan in July where he would hand over power to the DPM in 2010. But this plan came unstuck after Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s resounding victory in Permatang Pauh on Aug 26. Umno vice-president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, a persistent critic of Abdullah, urged him to truncate his transition plan. This led to other calls for a speedier handover of power to Najib, culminating in a supreme council meeting where Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, Datuk Shafie Apdal and Muhyiddin urged Abdullah to consider the ground sentiment and step down soon. After consulting his supporters and party officials, including Umno secretary-general Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, Abdullah decided that he was going to defend his party presidency, confident that he would easily obtain the 58 nominations needed to contest the party polls. This position changed after a series of meetings last week with Najib. It is unclear what transpired, but Abdullah’s camp was stunned that he accepted the March transition plan on Friday. Since then, there has been roiling speculation over his political future. Datuk Ruhanie Ahmad, posting on his blog yesterday, said he had received information that there was a move to push back the divisional meetings from October/November to February next year. He also said that there was a plan by Abdullah to ask the supreme council to convene a special assembly to remove the quota system. Under the system, candidates who offer themselves for senior positions in the party must obtain a minimum number of nominations from the divisions. Ruhanie said the move to postpone divisional meetings and remove the quota system was an indication that Abdullah was prepared to defend his position as party president. Checks by the Malaysian Insider with several supreme council members show that no such moves for postponing divisional meetings or removing the quota were in motion. Abdullah’s camp also scoffed at this posting, saying that it was based on a false assumption – that the PM was interested in contesting the party elections. Still, the theories will sprout like mushrooms after rain until Abdullah makes clear his position. Till then, supporters of Najib and Muhyiddin in the party will attempt to apply pressure on him to announce that he is not contesting the party elections. The decision by Cheras and Titiwangsa divisions to declare publicly that they would nominate Najib and Muhyiddin as number one and number two at their divisional elections should be seen from this perspective.
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