Most of the candidates who managed to win an Umno Supreme Council (SC) seat were those who were close to the grassroots and shared a comfortable relationship with them.

"Due to that, I was not surprised when Mohd Isa Samad garnered the highest number of votes for the vice-presidency. And so too with Mohd Ali Rustam...," said Annuar Musa, who also won an SC seat yesterday.

"I myself travelled to more than 140 Umno divisions to meet the grassroots members... I am most thankful to have been picked to join the SC," he told malaysiakini when met at the sidelines of the party's 55th annual general assembly in Kuala Lumpur.

In the polls yesterday, Mohd Isa obtained 1,507 votes, followed by Mohd Ali (1,329) and Muhyiddin Yasin (1,234).

Annuar successfully retained his SC seat with a total of 1,668 votes, the eighth highest total.

"The grassroots members found the winning candidates approachable and easy to get close to at all times... so surely they chose these candidates when it was time to vote," he said.

Aside from that, he believed that their victories were also due to solid support from G7 delegates, who were elected as delegates during the divisional meetings.

Another group of delegates, known as the G6, were made up of heads, deputy heads and vice heads of each division, together with the heads of their Wanita, Youth and Puteri wings. They were also automatically selected to be delegates by virtue of their posts.

On the ministers who lost in the party polls yesterday, Annuar said they may be known to the G6 delegates only.

"As the G6 delegates hold posts at the divisional level, they would have met the ministers...," he said.

However, according to him, the ministers were not so well known to the G7 delegates, who were the ones who actually represented the voice of the grassroots in their respective divisions.

Money politics

Regarding Mohd Isa, Annuar said aside from being approachable, he had also run for vice-presidency several times before.

Asked whether the results, which were considered shocking, had any links with money politics, he replied, "I do not want to say anything about something which I am not sure about..."

Another Umno Kelantan leader who won for the first time a SC seat is Awang Adek.

According to him, the results announced yesterday, though shocking in part, represented an ongoing process of change which will further strengthen Umno's position.

"In this manner, the party can carry out a process of change which can be accommodated to maintain stability and intelligence, with the formation of one group - several new faces admitted and several old faces retiring.

"We cannot look at those who have been left out as old faces... it is not fair to view it as such... it is an ongoing process of change which will further strengthen the party," he said

Meanwhile, a delegate opined that Mohd Isa's victory was also because all through the earlier campaigning, not much had been said about him.

"On the contrary, the campaigns were mostly about candidates which were said to have good chances of winning... all sorts of stories were going around... so the delegates decided to pick another candidate instead...," he said.

Furthermore, he added that Mohd Isa was well known as a generous and approachable person.