Now Najib says BN Supreme Council will decide on Penanti...

...in the near future.

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From the NST online

BN Supreme Council to decide on Penanti

KOTA KINABALU, Tues: The Barisan Nasional (BN) Supreme Council will decide whether the party should contest the Penanti State seat in Penang on May 31, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said.

"I don't think it (Penanti) is only an Umno issue because when we contest, we do so on the Barisan Nasional ticket.

"We are in no hurry to decide. We are a party that works very hard to look after thepeople''s welfare," he said at a press conference, here today.

Najib,who is also the BN chairman, said the decision on the BN's position on Penanti would be made in the near future.

(Huh? I thought he said earlier on that the decision whether to contest the Penanti seat will be referred to the Umno political bureau.)

Penanti: Muhyiddin's not telling...

Although the Umno political bureau met yesterday, deputy party president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin did not say whether Barisan Nasional (BN)will contest the state seat of Penanti come May 31.

Tan Sri Muhyiddin confirmed that the party’s political bureau met but he declined to say what was discussed.

Earlier, it was speculated that Prime Minister and Umno president Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak, who chaired the political bureau meeting, would announce the party's decision in Sabah last night.

Datuk Seri Najib had said that unnecessary by-elections are a waste of public resources following which he announced that BN might give the up-coming by-election a miss.

However, BN has been receiving mixed responses from its coalition partners who said the opposition should not be given a walkover.

And last week Datuk Seri Najib said after the Umno Supreme Council meeting that the party would leave it to its political bureau to decide whether to contest the seat.

The state seat, a PKR stronghold, fell vacant following the resignation of former deputy chief minister 1 Mohammad Fairus Khairuddin.

It comes under the Permatang Pauh parliamentary constituency of opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim who is its MP.
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Mansor is PKR candidate for Penanti

Former academician and Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) state deputy leader 58-year-old Mansor Othman (pic right) will be the party candidate for the Penanti by-election next month.

This was announced by PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim to a crowd of more than 1,000 people packed into Yayasan Aman, Penanti tonight.

Among Pakatan Rakyat leaders present were Penang Chief Minister and DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng, PKR national president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, state PKR chief and Bayan Baru parliamentarian MP Zahrain Mohd Hashim, state DAP chairperson and state executive councillor Chow Kon Yeow and former Deputy Chief Minister Mohammad Fairus Khairuddin.

Since the seat fell vacant after its incumbent representative Mohammad Fairus Khairuddin resigned on April 16, speculations were rife that Mansor was Anwar’s pick for the contest.

Mansor, a former professor from Universiti Sains Malaysia, was Anwar’s political secretary when the Parliamentary Opposition leader was the deputy prime minister in the Barisan Nasional federal government.

The by-election was called by the Election Commission when Fairus resigned as the elected representative. - Malaysiakini .