UMNO May Abolish Nomination Quotas

Translated by DOMINIC LOH/Sin Chew Daily

UMNO will convene a general assembly end of this year, and among the major agendas will be to amend party constitution to allow for the abolition of nomination quotas for senior party posts.

According to reliable information sources, the UMNO new leadership will propose to allow more party members to have the rights to vote for their leaders.

It has been understood that the on-going general assembly was supposed to have been held end of last year. The assembly has been postponed to now because of the power transition issue. As such, this general assembly should have been the 2008 general assembly, and the 2009 general assembly will be held end of this year.

It is anticipated that this year's general assembly will propose to amend the party constitution to pave way for the abolition of nomination quotas.

However, as only 2,600 central delegates from 191 divisions nationwide are holding the rights to vote in party elections, Najib feels that the elections may not truly reflect the will of all the party's three million members.

The nomination quotas for senior party posts were first implemented during Mahathir's time. Under this system, candidates vying for the party's presidency and deputy presidency must secure the nominations from at least 30% (58 divisions) and 20% (38) of all divisions, respectively. Those vying for vice presidency must get the nominations from at least 10% of the divisions (19).

As for the election of Supreme Council members, a threshold of 5% (10 divisions) has been set.