Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah's last hopes to secure the necessary nominations to contest for the Umno presidency hinges on 106 party divisions which will meet tomorrow and Sunday.

This weekend's meetings will be interesting because of the possibility of Razaleigh, who is popularly known as Ku Li, in receiving nominations from some divisions in Perak and Johor, the two states which have a sizable percentage of Umno's divisions.

Ku Li needs 58 nominations to qualify to contest the post of party chief - and to challenge incumbent leader and acting party president Abdullah Ahmad Badawi - in the Umno polls to be held this September.

Of the 106 divisions which will meet tomorrow and Sunday, are nineteen in Perak, Johor (17), Selangor (13), Kedah (12), Pahang (12), Terengganu (6) and Kelantan (5).

The talk about Ku Li possibly garnering the nominations over this weekend is believed to stem from the large number of former Semangat 46 supporters in those states who still remain loyal to the veteran leader after he returned to Umno's folds when the splinter party was dissolved in 1996.

As of today, 71 divisions have already met but Ku Li has yet to garner a single nomination. All of those divisions have nominated Abdullah and Najib Abdul Razak for president and deputy president respectively.

Of these 71 divisions, 11 are from Sabah, Federal Territory (10), Johor (9), Selangor (9), Penang (6), five each in Kelantan, Malacca, Negeri Sembilan, Perak, Kedah (3), Pahang (2) and Terengganu (1).

Drumming up support

It is understood that the 71 divisions which have already met are controlled by ardent supporters of Abdullah and Najib, giving Ku Li little chance of gaining support from them.

Umno has a total of 26 divisions in Johor, Sabah (25), Perak (24), Selangor (22), Kedah (15), Kelantan, Pahang (14), Penang, Federal Territory (13), Negeri Sembilan, Terengganu (8), Malacca (6), and Perlis (3).

Aside from Gua Musang - where Ku Li is the division chief - 41 divisions are due to meet tomorrow.

This includes Kemaman, a division controlled by Ku Li's former aide, Ahmad Shabery Chik, who is also the MP for Kemaman.

Another 65 divisions will be holding their meetings on Sunday.

By Sunday, all 24 divisions in Perak (except for Teluk Intan and Taiping) would have met. So too are all in Johor, Selangor and Kedah.

Meanwhile, three of the 14 divisions in Kelantan - Tanah Merah, Kubang Krian and Rantau Panjang - have yet to finalise the date of their meetings. In Terengganu, only the Kuala Terengganu division has yet to nail down a meeting date.

Of the division meetings tomorrow and Sunday, three are in the Federal Territory, six in Penang, two in Negeri Sembilan, three in Perlis, nine in Sabah and one in Malacca.

The remaining four Sabah divisions - Beluran, Keningau, Kudat and Sandakan - will be meeting in the final four days to July 22, which is the deadline for the division meetings.

Meanwhile, the last Negeri Sembilan division - Seremban - will be meeting on Monday while the Kelantan's Ketereh division will meet on July 22.

Increasing number of nominations

The Umno supreme council had also recently decided that the Umno division meeting for the Permatang Pauh in Penang will be postponed indefinitely.

As of yesterday, Abdullah and Najib each have garnered 66 nominations for the posts of president and deputy president respectively. The decisions of five divisions however have not been made known.

For the post of vice-president, incumbent Muhyiddin Yassin has received 60 nominations, followed by Mohd Ali Rustam (45) and Muhammad Muhd Taib (36). Mustapa Mohamed has also qualified to contest for the post with a total of 21 nominations, one more than the
requisite 20 nominations.

Since early this week, nominations for Rafidah Aziz to contest the Wanita head post has increased to 127 nominations, while her challenger, Siti Zaharah Sulaiman, remained at five. Shahrizat Abdul Jalil's total number of nominations for the Wanita deputy head post has also increased to 132, and without a challenger in sight.

And for Umno Youth, Hishammuddin Hussein now has a total 136 nominations for the post of Youth chief, while the prime minister's son-in-law, Khairy Jamaluddin, has also increased his haul of nominations for deputy Youth chief to 127.

Mukhriz Mahathir, Khairy's unlikely challenger, only has a total of six nominations, and requires another 23 nominations to qualify to stand for the post.

For Puteri Umno, the nominations received for the post of Puteri head so far are 115 for Noraini Ahmad, 28 for Suraya Yaacob and a single nomination for Sarah Ali Bashah.

For the post of Puteri deputy head, Rosnah Abdul Rashid Sherlin still leads with 74 nominations, followed by Bibi Sharliza Mohd Khalid (31), Azlinda Mohd Rashad (19), Shahaniza Shamsuddin (18), Suraya Yaacob (1) and the prime minister's daughter, Nori Abdullah (1).

Candidates for Puteri Umno posts only need to secure two nominations to qualify to contest.