Umno adopts electoral college system

PETALING JAYA: Although about 150,000 members will be voting in the upcoming Umno elections, the actual votes that will matter are those from the party’s 191 divisions.

This is because Umno will adopt the electoral college system, where each division carries only one vote for each post.

Umno secretary-general Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor said the system was chosen for the party elections, which for the first time will see about 150,000 members voting for supreme council members, as it was deemed the most practical due to the large number of voters involved.

“We have explained to party members how the system works. Although each division represents one vote, the grassroots will still be the deciders because it is they who will first vote to determine candidates their division will support,” he told The Star.

In the past, the Umno 191 divisions would send about 2,500 delegates to the general assembly to vote for the party leadership but this time around, voting will take place during the respective division meetings on Oct 19, ahead of the party’s annual general assembly slated for Dec 2 to 7.

Tengku Adnan said a candidate must obtain the most number of votes from delegates in a division in order to secure that division’s single vote.

The same system, he added, would also be used to elect office bearers for the Youth, Wanita and Puteri movements on Oct 12.

Tengku Adnan said that results for the party elections would be announced on the same day at the Umno headquarters. He added that ballot counting would start in the evening, with the results to be announced several hours later.

Meanwhile, Assoc Prof Shaharuddin Badaruddin from Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) said that the electoral college system had its pros and cons.

The most obvious advantage is that it will make it much easier to count the votes and determine the winners because the counting is conducted in each of the 191 division and not centralised, he said.

“However, this new system would also give smaller divisions such as Bukit Bintang in Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya an unfair advantage.

“This is because despite having fewer members, they will be considered equal to divisions with more voting members as each division represents one vote,” he added.

Shaharuddin said that while division chiefs sympathetic towards certain candidates could attempt to sway their members’ sentiments by organising activities for the candidates, they would still not be able to guarantee votes because of the large number of branch members who will be voting.