With Adenan Satem out of favour within the top PBB leadership, the axe is also expected to fall on the party's Wanita deputy leader, Rohani Karim.

Speculations are rife that Rohani, who is the parliamentary secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture and Agro-based Industry, will tender her resignation from her Wanita post soon.

Rohani, who was in Adenan Satem's group gunning for key posts in the 2004 PBB general assembly that never materialised, was said to be keen to contest against incumbent Wanita leader Sharifah Mordiah Tuanku Fauzi that year.

When that contest never took place, she continued as No 2 but soon found herself out of tandem with the Wanita leadership.

As if to add more salt to the wound, Rohani discovered that she was not the automatic choice to succeed Sharifah at this year's Wanita elections when the latter will voluntarily step down. Newcomer Fatimah Abdullah is said to be the favoured successor for Sharifah as Wanita chief.

Application to rejoin PBB

Another reason for Rohani's decision to step down, it is believed, is her involvement in the controversy surrounding former PBB stalwart Salleh Jafaruddin's reported interest to return to PBB.

Rohani was said to be the proposer for Salleh's application, and seconded by a clerical staff at PBB headquarters - when members are supposed to apply through the branch - before being endorsed by the party's supreme council.

Salleh, a former deputy education minister, was a key player in the failed 1987 Ming Court coup to topple Taib as chief minister.

The unforgiving Taib had never agreed to allow any of those PBB plotters of the coup to return to the party.

However, another former PBB vice-president and also a 1987 plotter Bujang Ulis is also not dismissing the possibility of Taib bringing back former PBB leaders who fought him in the past into the fold to strengthen the party.

"Politic is very unpredictable. I was told that Taib is trying to close ranks with some leaders, the door are always open in politics," he said.