Umno is expected to hold a party elections ‘dry run' sometime next month or in July.

For the biggest party in the country, boasting a membership of around 3.5 million, the exercise is to test its electoral system before the actual implementation targeted for its 2013 polls.

A new amendment to the Umno constitution, adopted last year, abolished the quota system requiring aspiring candidates to garner a set number of nominations from a required number of divisions in order to be eligible to contest in the national party elections.

Day 1 - 59th UMNO general assembly The party will also be opening up the number of people entitled to vote from the usual 2,700-odd party delegates to about 140,000, boosting delegate numbers of its divisions.

An Umno supreme council member, who did not want to be named, said the dry run may take place in June or July.

"This was discussed at the last supreme council meeting," he said, adding that more details would be revealed at the next monthly meeting of the council.

He also said that party secretary-general Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor was likely to be in charge of the dry run.

bagan pinang by election nomination 031009 hishammuddin hussein Umno vice-president Hishammuddin Hussein ( left ) had said in February that the party would be holding its dry run in March when branch meetings were scheduled to take place, to ensure that the next polls will be glitch-free.

However, the branch elections were held without any mention of the dry run.

Several Umno divisions also appeared to be in the dark, saying that they had not received any information on the matter.

An Umno division leader who declined to be named also said that such an exercise was highly unlikely any time soon for the simple reason that everyone is just "too busy".

Dry run not possible this year

"Everyone is busy preparing for the general election," he said, adding that all branch and wing leaders were sent for refresher courses on the parliamentary elections process, including polling agent and counting agent training sessions since early this year.

Several of the divisions have also started holding their annual meetings and elections for the G7 and G6, a nickname for the group of seven division leaders and six ordinary members who represent each division at the party's annual general meeting.

"Even if the number of delegates has increased, the voting and counting process is still the same. It won't actually involve that much additional work that we need a dry run," said the division leader.

Meanwhile, it is understood that the details of the dry run have not been brought up to the party's powerful management committee, chaired by its deputy president Muhyiddin Yassin.

Efforts to reach Tengku Adnan on the matter proved futile.

Umno president and Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak won the 2008-2011 term unopposed in the last Umno elections.

Though the next party polls is next year, Najib announced its postponement by 18 months in a bid to "strengthen the party", adding to the speculation that snap polls will be called before Parliament's term expires in 2013.