KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 24 — Titiwangsa MP Datuk Seri Johari Abdul Ghani submitted his nomination papers to join the Umno vice-presidency election next month this morning, Utusan Malaysia reported.

He is the third person to have confirmed his candidacy after Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin and Datuk Mahdzir Khalid.

Other senior Umno members who have been reported interested to contest for the three vice-president spots are Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Zambry Abdul Kadir, Law and Institutional Reform Minister Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said, and Simpang Renggam MP Datuk Seri Hasni Mohamad.

But none of the three names have submitted their forms to date, Utusan Malaysia reported.

The Malay daily added that former prime minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob who is an incumbent Umno vice-president has also not confirmed if he will defend his post in the March 18 party election for its senior leaders.

Umno election chairman Tan Sri Shahrir Samad told the newspaper that his committee has received 158 nomination forms as of February 22.

Of that number, there are so far 51 people competing for 25 spots in the Umno supreme council, two are vying for the permanent chairman position, and six for the deputy permanent chairman.

"There is already one candidate for the Umno women’s chief, three candidates for Umno Youth chief, and six candidates for the Puteri chief.

"One candidate has registered for the Wanita Umno vice-chief, four candidates for the Umno Youth vice-chief, and three candidates for Puteri,” Shahrir was quoted as saying.

Umno is currently holding its internal party elections for all 191 divisions and 22,000 branches nationwide.

The party’s new office bearers will be elected from February 1 to March 18. However, the positions of president and deputy president will not be contested this time around.

In May last year, Umno amended its constitution to allow its party polls to be held within six months after the conclusion of the 15th general election.

The biggest Malay-based party had earlier postponed its party elections for 18 months after the 2018/2021 term ended on June 30, 2021.

Umno’s election for the 2021/2023 term was originally supposed to be held before December 30 last year prior to the postponement.