Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) top two leaders, Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and her deputy Dr Syed Husin Ali, are expected to be officially endorsed in their positions during the party's inaugural congress on Dec 18-19.

The duo have been at the helm of PKR since the party was established following the merger of Wan Azizah's Keadilan and Syed Husin's Parti Rakyat Malaysia (PRM) last August.

Although there is already another name being nominated for Syed Husin's deputy president's post, the person nominated, Abdul Rahman Othman, has not formally accepted it.

Abdul Rahman resigned as secretary-general of PKR after he was badly defeated in the Putrajaya parliamentary constituency in last March's general election.

He was later coaxed to accept a position in the supreme council.

Nomination for party posts will close on Nov 5. All 29 elected posts are up for grab.

PKR has a total of 62 members in its transitional supreme council with 29 elected and 33 appointed.

PKR secretary-general and congress organising committee head Mustaffa Kamil Ayub told malaysiakini that the meeting will be held at the Pooi Nam school in Ipoh. He said 1,200 central delegates and 2,000 observers are expected to turn up.

Election heat?

He said that the youth and women wings will hold their respective meetings at the same venue a day earlier. Each wing has about 700 to 800 delegates.

Asked whether he expected fireworks at the party elections, Mustaffa said he will onle be able to see any patterns after Nov 5 (when nomination closes).

"At the moment, I can't speculate," he said.

The secretary-general also said that a code of ethics has been drawn up and an election committee headed by Ibrahim Suffian * [clarification] , director of the private Merdeka Centre, will thrash out the details pertaining to the party polls.

Meanwhile, party vice-president Tian Chua said a heated contest may take place in view of the "mood" among party members following Anwar's release and the current political scenario.

"However, I believe delegates will differentiate which candidate has been doing his or her work. Those offering themselves at the last minute will find it very tough," he added.

PKR has had a rocky ride since its consolidation last August with internal dissension to the merger. It also faced a major external obstacle when the government refused to recognise the party, as party stalwarts wanted to maintain 'Keadilan' as the party's acronym.

The matter was only resolved after the merged entity agreed to the PKR acronym.

He added that the large number of observers are expected since it is the first congress for the party and also because Anwar Ibrahim will be attending as the guest-of-honour.

The former deputy prime minister and PKR advisor is expected to address a dinner which will be held in conjunction with the congress.

Clarification:

Merdeka Centre not involved in PKR polls