KUALA LUMPUR: All signs point to another postponement of the Umno supreme council meeting scheduled for Aug 28, as the party deals with the storm that is brewing in the wake of last month’s Cabinet reshuffle.

Umno secretary-general Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor has yet to announce whether the meeting will go on.

“The meeting is in the secretary-general’s schedule, but he has yet to decide whether to call for it or not,” a party source told The Malaysian Insider.

Discontent among party grass roots over the Cabinet reshuffle — which saw Umno deputy president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and vice-president Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal dropped from their government posts — is said to be among the reasons Tengku Adnan is hesitating to call for a meeting.

“Since the Cabinet was reshuffled, there have been no signs that the conflict within the party will abate.

“You can see how heated the division and wing meetings have become, and it doesn’t seem like the grass roots will stop criticising the president,” said the source, referring to party president Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

This could be the second time in a row the top leaders of the party have postponed its meeting. The council was to decide on Muhyiddin and Mohd Shafie’s fate in the party at its July 29 meeting, but it was called off at the 11th hour.

Najib dropped the two leaders from his Cabinet after they had openly voiced their criticism over his handling of the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) scandal.

When met on Monday, Tengku Adnan told The Malaysian Insider that he had yet to decide whether the Aug 28 meeting would go on.

“Wait, I will make a statement,” he had said.

But delaying the meeting will soon no longer be an option, as Umno’s constitution states that the supreme council must convene once every two months, or when a president calls for it, or when two-thirds of the council pen a request for the meeting to be held.

“If the secretary-general does not call for a meeting in accordance with Article 9.13.2 within 14 days of the request being made, then the members who made the request can call for a meeting on the condition that all supreme council members are invited.

“The meeting can be carried out if at least one-third of the supreme council members are in attendance,” sources said. — The Malaysian Insider

This article first appeared in digitaledge Daily, on August 14, 2015.