Malaysiakini reports here that Pak Lah intends to make up his mind whether or, not to defend his post as UMNO President in the next 2 days. If Pak Lah chooses not to defend the presidency, the Deputy President, Najib, will be the favourite to assume the presidency of UMNO.
As all Malaysians are fully aware, the UMNO presidency is packaged together with leadership of the ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional and, the ultimate prize of Prime Minister of Malaysia.
The Malaysian Insider, being true to its moniker has a more confident report, in contrast to Malaysiakini. Its report states baldly, No surprises. On Wednesday, after briefing the Cabinet and the Barisan Nasional Supreme council, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi will tell Malaysians that he will not defend the Umno president"s position.
His announcement, a day before the start of the Umno divisional elections, will mark the beginning of the end of his premiership, the shortest in the history, and sets the stage for Datuk Seri Najib Razak to be returned unopposed as the president of Umno and prime minister of Malasysia.
Under the transition plan accepted by Abdullah, and endorsed by the party"s supreme council late last month, the PM was expected to decline receiving any nominations from the divisions. In return, the party elections were postponed from December to March to give him the time to complete several reforms which he started.
But since the transition plan was announced, there has been speculation that Abdullah could surprise everyone by deciding to defend his position. Supporters and government officials who have met him over the past 10 days, say that though disappointed with the manner the March transition plan was sprung on him, and while he has come to believe that the groundswell against his leadership in Umno was manufactured, he did not speak about wanting to contest the party elections.
It would appear that many interested parties within UMNO and, from the outside, may have to re-appraise their strategies to deal with this scenario.
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