Incumbent PKR vice-president Azmin Ali continues to lead the pack in the heated race for party deputy president, gaining 90 nominations out of the 150 divisions that have held their AGMs.

azlan While his main rival for the much coveted number two spot, Federal Territories chief Zaid Ibrahim, still trails behind with 33 nominations.

Others in the deputy president race are fellow vice-president Mustafa Kamil Ayub with 16 nominations, Selangor MB Khalid Ibrahim (four), PKR director of strategy Tian Chua (four) and incumbent president Wan Azizah Wan Ismail (two).

Both Pantai Baru parliamentarian Nurul Izzah Anwar and Kuantan MP Fuziah Ismail also garnered one nomination each, though they are still short of one more to qualify to contest. Candidates require two nominations to be able to contest.

azlan Mustaffa, who has received nominations for both the deputy president and vice-president posts, is expected to announce his candidacy tomorrow in Kuala Lumpur.

However it is unclear if he will be defending his vice-president's post or gunning for the number two spot.

Meanwhile, in the race to fill the four available posts of vice-president, Fuziah is leading comfortably with 108 nominations, followed by PKR Youth chief Shamsul Iskandar Md Akin with 43, vice-president Mustaffa Kamil Ayub with 31 and another incumbent vice-president Lee Boon Chye with 27.

The rest of those nominated for vice-president are Penang Deputy Chief Minister Mansor Othman (26), Subang parliamentarian R Sivarasa (24), Tian Chua (23), Nurul Izzah (16), Padang Serai parliamentarian N Gobalakrishnan (15), Khalid (14), Johor PKR chief Chua Jui Meng (11) and Azmin (11).

In the race for party president, incumbent president Wan Azizah continues to lead with 111 nominations, while her husband and de-facto leader Anwar Ibrahim followed with 13 nominations.

Zaid also qualified to run for the top party post with two nominations.

    

Polling in 37 divisions

The coming batch of PKR divisional AGMs will see 37 divisions go to the ballot to chose divisional leaders and decide on their nominations for the central party posts.

Satruday will see 22 divisions in Selangor, Johor and Sarawak holding their elections and nominations, while Sunday will see 15 divisions in the same three states going to the polls.

Selangor and Sarawak, which boast of some of the largest divisional memberships, are expected to see heated contests as factions within PKR vie to control the most populous divisions in the run-up to the one-member-one-vote national leadership elections.

Some of the hottest tussles expected are in Kelana Jaya where PKR communications director Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad is contesting, and the Kuala Selangor division where Khalid is running for division chief.

This is after the previous round of divisional polls saw state exco members like Elizabeth Wong and Rodziah Ismail losing their bid for divisional posts.