Abdullah to decide by Oct 9 on Umno presidency

Source TheStar

KUALA LUMPUR: Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi will make a decision on whether he will defend the Umno presidency before the party's divisional level elections begin on Oct 9.

The Umno president and Prime Minister said this after charing a special party supreme council meeting at PWTC here Friday morning.

Abdullah also announced that the party's general assembly has been postponed to March next year.

However, he said that the Umno divisional elections would go on as scheduled from Oct 9 to Nov 9.

The Umno general assembly was earlier slated for Dec 16 to 20.

He said the postponement was to facilitate an "early power transition" from him to his deputy Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.

The original transition plan, which was announced in July, would have seen Najib take over from Abdullah by June 2010.

To a question on whether this meant that he would not be seeking re-election to the Umno presidency, Abdullah said: "I have not decided yet. I will make a decision before the (Umno) divisional elections (from Oct 9 to Nov 9)."

Abdullah also said the special meeting went on well and he was not pressured by any of the supreme council members to quit.

Friday’s meeting by the 25-member Umno supreme council was the latest in a fast-moving chain of events in Umno politics since the fasting month began.

After last week’s supreme council meeting, several state Umno chiefs were said to have convened at Abdullah’s official residence for a meeting during which they urged Abdullah to get a firmer commitment from Najib regarding the coming party elections.

Some of them were concerned that Najib had, on the one hand, expressed support for the transition plan but on the other, had said he would leave the final decision to delegates attending the Umno division meetings next month.

The meeting took place between 1am and 3am on Tuesday. That same evening, Abdullah and Najib had a four-eyed meeting.

On Wednesday afternoon, Najib chaired a hastily convened Umno management committee meeting, presumably to brief them and get a consensus on what had transpired between him and the Prime Minister.

The management committee, chaired by Najib, comprises key Umno leaders including vice-presidents, secretary-general, treasurer, information chief and leaders of the Wanita, Youth and Puteri wings.

Members of the committee have been extremely tight-lipped about the meeting following Najib’s stern warning on confidentiality.

On Thursday morning, another four-eyed meeting took place between Abdullah and Najib. It is understood that the meeting was to convey what transpired among the management committee members.

It was Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin who lit the spark when he urged Abdullah to consider an earlier exit plan. That spark became a flame when Najib announced he would let the division meetings decide on the transition of power.

His statement was widely read as an indication that he would be open to being nominated for the top party post.

However, he has also repeatedly stressed that he is opposed to a “takeover of power” and was looking instead at a “handover of power”.