JOHARI Abdul Ghani and Khaled Nordin, who are vying for the Umno vice-president posts, were coy on whether they are part of Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah’s team. 

Tengku Razaleigh, 81, who is popularly known as Ku Li, confirmed today he was running for Umno president in the party polls at the end of the month. 

Johari and Khaled were at Razaleigh’s Kuala Lumpur house when the elder politician made the announcement. 

“I am not in any camp. Umno cannot afford to have camps any more. No more,” Johari said. 

“You can’t have party elections where the winners lead and the losers leave. You can’t any more.”

The former second finance minister said Umno could no longer afford to split according to the different contestants vying for party positions when what it needed now was healing after suffering its worst defeat in the 14th general election. 

“It’s important that we have no camps. We contest as siblings. Whoever wins will lead, while the losers will support the party. 

“That is the foundation of the party elections this time,” the Umno Supreme Council member said when met at Tengku Razaleigh’s house after the latter’s press conference.

Johari, who heads the Umno Titiwangsa division, said he attended the press conference simply because Tengku Razaleigh had invited him, not because he was also contesting for a party position.

“His house is in Titiwangsa, my area. This is my kampung. So when he invited me, I came,” said the former Titiwangsa MP.

Johor Umno chairman Khaled also declined to comment, only saying that he would issue a statement in a day or two.

There are rumours that there was a movement in Umno to promote Tengku Razaleigh as the new party president.

The movement allegedly began in Johor which has 26 divisions, a huge bloc in the party polls involving 191 divisions in total.

Of the 26, it was said that party vice-president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who is also going for the presidency, only has the support of three or four divisions.

Zahid is currently acting as party president, following the resignation of Najib Razak after Umno and Barisan Nasional’s failure to retain Putrajaya in GE14.

Another Umno leader present at today’s press conference was Umno Veterans’ Club secretary-general Mustafa Yakub, who said he supported the Gua Musang MP over Zahid.

He said Razaleigh was like an “outsider” who could heal Umno, like how the late Abdul Razak Hussein saved Umno after party co-founder Onn Jaafar left Umno, and like how Dr Mahathir Mohamad succeeded Hussein Onn.

“To cure a loss of confidence in Umno, we need an outside bomoh (witch doctor), not an in-house bomoh,” he said.

Mustafa said the key to solving Umno’s predicament was not in the current leadership line-up.

Umno vice-president Hishammuddin Hussein said recently he would not contest any post, instead focus on rebuilding Umno in Johor, the party’s birthplace that has fallen to Pakatan Harapan.

The nomination of candidates for the Umno elections closes at 5pm tomorrow. The election committee will then verify the final list of candidates.

This time, about 150,000 delegates are eligible to vote to elect the top office-bearers, including president.

Apart from Tengku Razaleigh and Zahid, Kota Raja Umno division member and blogger Rahmat Azim Abdul Aziz, who is also known as Mat Umno, is also going for the party presidency.

So far, the deputy president post is being eyed by Negri Sembilan Umno chief Mohamad Hasan and party information chief Annuar Musa.

Apart from Johari and Khaled, six others contesting for the vice-president posts are Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin, Supreme Council members Tajuddin Abdul Rahman, Ahmad Said, Ismail Sabri Yaakop, Shahidan Kassim and Mahadzir Khalid. – June 16, 2018.