ALL Umno leadership positions, including the president, deputy president and vice-president posts, are open for contest in the party’s upcoming polls, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said, putting to rest attempts to prevent contest for the party’s top two positions.

The vice-president, who is assuming the duties of party president after Najib Razak’s resignation, said it was a unanimous decision by the Umno Supreme Council to open up all the top positions for contest.

“We are asking leaders and members interested to run for the positions at the national and division levels to register their names online beginning June 1. The registration will close on June 13 at 5pm.

“All positions, including those in the Umno wings, are open for contest by any member who qualifies. There is no issue that there is no contest for certain positions,” he told a press conference after the Supreme Council meeting this evening.

Zahid also said he and vice-president Hishammuddin Hussein both wanted all leadership positions in Umno to be open for contest.

It was reported that some in Umno wanted to see Zahid and Hishammuddin assume the top two positions unchallenged.

However, last week Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin had said that no Umno post should be considered sacred and that the past practice of having no contests against party leaders was among the reasons Umno had fared badly in GE14, winning only 54 parliamentary seats compared to 88 in 2013.

“It looked like we don’t provide the democratic space for our members. We’d better stop this nonsense of no-contest business,” he was quoted as saying.

Umno is going through some soul-searching after Barisan Nasional suffered its first shocking defeat in the 14th general election, losing control of Putrajaya.

Najib took responsibility for the defeat and quit as BN and Umno chief on May 12. – May 22, 2018.