UMNO has agreed to field a candidate for the Cameron Highlands by-election who will take Barisan Nasional forward, said acting party president Mohamad Hasan.

“In the past, the party can field any candidate it wants but under the new circumstances, we want to field a candidate that can help the party (Barisan Nasional) move forward,” said Mohamad, after chairing his first Supreme Council meeting tonight.

The former Negri Sembilan menteri besar, however, declined to confirm whether the candidate will be from Umno.

“Wait for the announcement tomorrow morning,” said Mohamad, who is deputising for party president Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi who is on “garden leave”.

Although it was left to MIC to contest the Cameron Highlands parliamentary seat in the last elections, the coalition is widely expected to field an Orang Asli candidate after the win of MIC’ C Sivarraajh was nullified by the Election Court last November. 

Mohamad said BN will use the Cameron Highlands by-election to gauge the support of voters following its electoral defeat last year.

Pakatan Harapan has said it will field DAP’s M. Manogaran while former MyPPP president M Kayveas has also announced thrown his name into the hat.

Meanwhile, Mohamad said the party branches will hold the their individual AGMs from February 15-April 30 followed by divisional and state meetings.

He said that the party has extended the period for the branches to hold their meetings to two and a half months so that division leaders could attend as many branch meetings as possible.

“We want the leaders to use this opportunity to explain the party direction to the members,”  – January 9, 2019.