Gua Musang member of Parliament Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, who is seeking to contest the Umno president post, said he would stay mum on the issue as he did not want to be seen to be campaigning in the party polls, which will be held in September.

"There is no need for me to speak any further, otherwise some will say that I'm campaigning. It is better for me not to say anything, and wait for the right time if there's something which needs to be said," he said when accosted by reporters in the Parliament's lobby today.

According to Bernama , Razaleigh, who had won the Gua Musang division chief post without contest, was reluctant to state when the "right time" would be for him to speak out about the contest for Umno's most powerful post.

To qualify as a candidate for the post of president, Razaleigh needs to secure 30 percent of nominations, or 58 out of a total of 191 Umno divisions nationwide.

As of last Sunday, Razaleigh has yet to receive a single nominations from the 62 Umno divisions which already held their meetings. The remaining 129 divisions must hold their meetings by next Thursday.

All the 62 divisions which have met had nominated Abdullah Ahmad Badawi for president and Najib Razak for deputy president.

Ambition

Razaleigh, who is a former Umno vice-president, said he would leave it up to the party to make whatever decision it sees fit about his ambition to contest the presidency.

"That is a party matter. There is nothing that I want to say because I have already stated what my ambition is in the meeting for my division," he said.

Meanwhile, four candidates have qualified for the contest for the three vice-president posts by securing more than the requisite 20 nominations each.

They are incumbents Muhyiddin Yassin (57 nominations) and Muhammad Muhd Taib (35 nominations) and two others, Mohd Ali Rustam (39 nominations) dan Mustapa Mohamed (21 nominations).

For the party's supreme council posts, 27 candidates have secured the 10 nominations required. They include Mohd Khir Toyo (24), Azalina Othman (18), Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor (13), Shahidah Kassim (16), Mohamed Nazri Aziz (21) dan Annuar Musa (11).

For the post of Wanita Umno head, incumbent Rafidah Aziz and her current deputy, Shahrizat Jalil, have both exceeded the minimum number of nominations needed to defend their respective posts.

Rafidah secured 125 nominations while Shahrizat bagged 130. The minimum number of nominations needed to qualify to contest is 39 and 29 respectively.

Meanwhile, Siti Zaharah Sulaiman, who had declared her intention to challenge Rafidah for the Wanita chief post, has secured five nominations to date.

Youth and Puteri

For Umno Youth, Hishammuddin Hussein received 132 nominations to defend his post as Youth chief, while the prime minister's son-in-law, Khairy Jamaluddin , received 123 nominations for the post of deputy head.

Both are not expected to face any challengers.

For the post of Puteri chief, two candidates - Noraini Ahmad dan Suraya Yaacob - have qualified to contest after they received more than the requisite two nominations each. At this stage, Noraini has received 114 nominations while Suraya has 28.

For the post of Puteri deputy head, four candidates have qualified to contest. They are Azalinda Mohd Rashad (18), Rosnah Abdul Rashid (74), Bibi Sharliza Khalid (31) and Shahaniza Shamsuddin (18).

Unlike its parent party, Puteri requires only two nominations for its candidates to qualify for contest.