DATUK Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has not faced a challenger for the UMNO presidency since 2018, when he won a three-way contest against Khairy Jamaluddin and Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah.
Eight years later, the issue is not simply why nobody has challenged him. It is whether UMNO members have been given the opportunity to do so.
At the 2022 UMNO general assembly, delegates approved a motion that the president and deputy president posts would not be contested at the party election the following year.
The motion was subsequently approved by the Registrar of Societies, paving the way for Zahid and UMNO deputy president Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan to continue in the two top positions without a contest.
The distinction is important.
An incumbent can go unchallenged because no rival comes forward. In that situation, the position remains open and members have the option of putting forward an alternative candidate.
UMNO’s 2023 election was different. The party had already decided that its president and deputy president would not be contested.
The Last Presidential Race
Zahid’s 2018 victory came after UMNO suffered its first defeat in a general election.
He secured the support of 93 divisions, ahead of Khairy with 51 and Tengku Razaleigh with 23.
It was a contested election and members had a choice.
Five years later, there was no presidential contest.
The no-contest motion was passed on Jan 14, 2023, with a majority of delegates supporting it. Zahid said the motion complied with UMNO’s constitution and that its approval was final.
The decision came despite Zahid saying days earlier that he was prepared to face anyone seeking the presidency.
He said at the time that the party’s representatives should have the opportunity to choose its leadership.
The General Assembly subsequently voted to keep the two top posts off the contest list.
An analysis by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute described the 2023 move as the first time a no-contest arrangement for the top two posts had been passed through a delegate motion at the General Assembly. It noted that while the presidency had rarely been contested, it had remained technically open to challenge.
Unopposed Is Not The Same As Closed
The experience of other parties provides a useful comparison.
PAS president Tan Sri Abdul Hadi Awang has gone unchallenged, including at the party’s 2025 election. But before that election, PAS spiritual leader Datuk Hashim Jasin said the party’s rules allowed members to contest the president and deputy president posts if they received the necessary nominations.
No challenger emerged and Hadi retained the presidency.
PKR’s 2025 election produced a similar result for its president.
Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was the sole candidate when nominations closed, while the deputy presidency was contested by Nurul Izzah Anwar and Rafizi Ramli.
Anwar has also been returned unopposed in the previous two PKR elections, according to an ISEAS review of the party’s elections from 2014 to 2025.
Bersatu’s 2024 election likewise returned Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin as president and Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin as deputy president without challengers.
Those examples are relevant because an incumbent being returned unopposed is not, by itself, evidence that a party has prevented a challenge.
The crucial difference is whether a rival was free to enter the race.
In PAS, PKR and Bersatu, the recent elections ended without a challenger for the presidency.
In UMNO’s 2023 election, delegates had first voted to prevent a contest for the president and deputy president posts.
UMNO Is Not Alone
There is an important qualification.
UMNO is not the only Malaysian party to have used a formal no-contest resolution.
MIC’s 2023 general assembly unanimously passed resolutions that the president and deputy president posts would not be contested at its 2024 party election.
That means it would be inaccurate to suggest UMNO is the only party to have taken such a step.
But it does not change what happened at UMNO’s 2023 election: the party’s two highest positions were removed from the contest.
Mohamad Hasan had argued that a contest for the top positions could deepen divisions in a party recovering from its electoral defeat.
The argument put the emphasis on maintaining unity at a time when UMNO was dealing with the aftermath of GE14 and the 2022 general election.
Whether that was the right political calculation is a matter for UMNO’s members.
The fact remains that they did not get a contested presidential election in 2023.
Eight Years Without A Presidential Contest
UMNO last held its party election in 2023 and has since amended its constitution to allow the polls to be postponed within specified limits.
Zahid said in January that the next party election would be held after the 16th general election.
When that election takes place, attention will again turn to whether the presidency is open to challengers.
Zahid has won one contested race for the presidency, in 2018.
Since then, he has remained president through an election in which the post was not open to contest.
That leaves UMNO with a straightforward political question as it approaches its next party polls: will members again be able to choose between competing candidates for the presidency?
For a party that has played a central role in Malaysian politics for decades, the answer will say something about how its leadership is chosen — and how much room there is within the party for a challenge from its own ranks. - September 27, 2026
