KUALA LUMPUR (June 29): UMNO has decided to postpone its party elections for 18 months.
Its secretary-general Datuk Seri Ahmad Maslan said the decision which was agreed to by the party’s Supreme Council (MT) was made in accordance with Clause 10.16 of Umno constitution.
The clause states that MT has the power to postpone party polls at the supreme council, branch and division levels up to 18 months from the date when the elections are supposed to be held.
According to the party’s constitution, UMNO elections must be held every three years after the term for the party leadership ends. The last party elections were held on June 30, 2018.
Ahmad said that the decision was also made on the advice of the Health director-general through a letter dated May 10, as well as the view from the Registrar of Societies (RoS) and the National Security Council (MKN) director-general, on the matter.
“The Health Ministry (MOH) and and MKN had suggested that UMNO meetings and elections be held virtually.
“The MOH and MKN also mentioned that if UMNO is unable to conduct the elections virtually, the party may postpone the polls to a later date and until the Covid-19 situation is under control,” he said in a statement today.
According to Ahmad, 66,287 meetings and elections had to be held involving the attendance of 3.3 million UMNO members in addition to 764 conferences comprising delegates from four levels of divisional meetings, namely Division, Wanita, Youth and Puteri Wings.
He said the conferences and meetings must be held simultaneously across two weekends which would be difficult during the current pandemic situation.
He added that UMNO has never conducted its meetings and conferences virtually due to the concern over potential technical errors and Internet connection problems in rural areas.
However, Ahmad said the party branch and divisional level meetings, as well as its general assembly would still proceed with with attendance of not more than 25% to meet the annual association procedure.
He said that based on a proposal tabled at an MT meeting, the party branch and divisional level meetings must be held from Aug 15 to Sept 30.
“That meetings can be held virtually in areas with Internet coverage, while for rural areas with bad internet access, face-to-face meetings can be held subject to approval by the authorities,” he said.
