KUALA LUMPUR – Just a week after setting aside their differences to ensure the party reclaimed Malaysia’s premiership, Umno’s factions are at loggerheads again over prized positions in Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s Cabinet.

Prime Minister Ismail, the Umno vice-president, was eventually backed by all but one of the party’s 38 MPs – only former finance minister Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah refused – after showdown talks between the bickering camps on Aug 17.

On Monday (Aug 23), Datuk Seri Ismail promised to announce his Cabinet line-up this week but he has yet to formally meet his party’s leadership since being sworn in last Saturday.

Sources told The Straits Times that several Umno supreme council meetings, as well as informal talks with the party’s top brass led by president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi have been repeatedly postponed. The supreme council, the party’s top decision-making body, may now only meet on Friday, despite indications that ministers could be named beginning on Wednesday.

It is understood that Zahid and his deputy Mohamad Hasan, along with former premier Najib Razak, lead a camp that has a list of candidates for Cabinet positions. Zahid and Najib as well as several MPs aligned to them are unlikely to be made ministers due to ongoing graft charges.

Umno youth chief Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki has openly called for Datuk Seri Mohamad to be made finance minister, the most important position after the premiership itself.

“The public who are now suffering, anxious and hard-pressed, need a finance minister who is used to being with the people and understands the pulse of the nation,” the Umno youth chief said on Monday.

“There are clear overlaps in demands and wide gaps in red lines drawn in the sand,” a source revealed. “But there are only so many ministers the PM can appoint from Umno without angering other allies.”

Zahid led a group of about 15 Umno MPs who withdrew their support for former premier, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, earlier this month. But Mr Ismail, who served as deputy prime minister under Mr Muhyiddin, along with over 20 others in Umno insisted on standing behind the Perikatan Nasional government.

Mr Muhyiddin resigned on Aug 16 and the two camps in Umno united behind Mr Ismail, ensuring Umno would reclaim the country’s top political office just three years after losing the 2018 election. It was the first time since independence that Umno lost its political dominance in the country.

Mr Ismail is understood to be keen to retain acceptable faces from the Muhyiddin administration such as then finance minister Zafrul Aziz and Mr Khairy Jamaluddin, who led the Covid-19 immunisation drive, arguably the most acclaimed initiative of the previous government.

But Mr Khairy’s recent outburst of having “trust issues” with Zahid has given cause for the president’s camp to call for him to be dropped from Cabinet. Datuk Seri Zafrul is also not an Umno member, and his finance portfolio is hugely coveted.

But the former CIMB chief executive is considered an important conduit to the palace, with the King, Sultan Abdullah Ahmad Shah, becoming an increasingly crucial factor due to the nation’s prolonged political uncertainty.

The jostling among Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia leaders to be deputy prime minister has also escalated, with secretary general Hamzah Zainudin and former senior minister Azmin Ali being touted as front runners. Bersatu, which is led by Mr Muhyiddin, along with Parti Islam SeMalaysia and Umno were the standard-bearers of the PN government.

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It is learnt that Mr Ismail has considered taking a leaf out of his predecessor’s playbook by electing not to appoint a deputy, so as to mollify rivals. But such a snub to Bersatu would also be risky, given the government’s wafer-thin majority.

The 114 MPs that made up the Muhyiddin administration remain in the government bench in the 222-seat Parliament, where two seats are vacant.

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