Muhyiddin: It’s up to delegates

Source TheStar

KUALA LUMPUR: Umno leaders can plan all they want but the plans must be endorsed by the delegates at the end of the day, said vice-president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

“The delegates have the final say. At the division level in terms of nominations and at the AGM in terms of elections,” he said yesterday.

Muhyiddin also said there was no power struggle when it came to the transition plan put forward by the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister.

“The (Umno) tradition is for a smooth transition, so the impression that there is a power struggle is not correct,” he said after launching the 2008 Malaysia-India Economic Conference here yesterday.

Muhyiddin, who is International Trade and Industry Minister, declined to comment on whether next month’s party elections would be postponed because some Umno leaders were reportedly objecting to the transition plan. On his plan to contest in the coming party elections, Muhyiddin said it was too early for him to say anything.

Umno supreme council member Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal has voiced his support for Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim’s call that the top two positions in Umno be open for contest in the December party elections.

“We leave it to the grassroots to decide. The top leaders can make suggestions on whether a seat will be defended or not, but it’s up to the grassroots,” he told reporters after launching the Kempen Budi Bahasa di Jalan Raya (Good Manners on the Road Campaign) here yesterday.

Asked if he could confirm that he was one of the Umno leaders who had called for Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to speed up his transition plan in last Thurs-day’s Umno supreme council meeting, Shafie declined to comment.