THE Umno Supreme Council will decide by June 30 when to hold party elections said Ahmad Maslan.

The party secretary-general said the decision will be based the advice of the Registrar of Society (RoS), National Security Council and Health Ministry.

“I have been tasked with getting answers from these bodies and I have but I am at this time unable to share them.

 “Let’s wait for the Supreme Council decision on the matter,” he told Malaysia Post in an interview.

The Umno constitution allows the party to postpone elections for up to 18 months from the time they are due.

Umno held its last party elections on June 30, 2018.

Ahmad had said in April that he would consult the authorities on internal elections amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

In a statement, the party secretary-general said this was to ensure that the election could be held smoothly in light of the rising number of Covid-19 cases. 

“The imminent party elections involve branch and division meetings, including the Wanita, Youth and Puteri wings. It involves 66,287 meetings in 191 divisions and some 3.3 million members,” he said after a three-hour Supreme Council meeting

Umno has a one-division, one-vote system that lets all the delegates in the divisions vote in the election of  Supreme Council members.

Division elections can only be held after the branches meet and elect their office-bearers.

This provides a challenge, especially for bigger divisions like Lahad Datu, which has 46,570 delegates, Semporna (40,296), Libaran (38,131), Gombak (37,851) and Baling (37,512).

Party leaders Annuar Musa, Khairy Jamaluddin and Reezal Merican have urged the party not to postpone the polls.

They said fresh polls will resolve internal conflicts and deliver a new line-up of leaders ahead of the general election. – June 21, 2021.