MTUC finally gets a new president after a year’s worth of drama

SHAH ALAM – The Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) finally gets a new president Mohd Effendy Abdul Ghani in the recent triennial delegates conference for the 2022 – 2025 term.

Effendy wins the top post with a total of 288 votes over another candidate Mohd Jafar Abd Majid who only gained 107 votes.

MTUC’s acting president Matkar Siwang wins the number two post with 265 votes.

Meanwhile its secretary-general Kamarul Baharin Mansor retained his position with 274 votes.

Kamarul Baharin Mansor said the conference which was held at University Malaya was attended by 411 representatives nationwide from 115 MTUC’s joint trade unions.

The conference was officiated by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob.

“With the end of the conference, MTUC has filled all vacancies of all positions except youth and women representatives,” he said in a statement.

The dispute for the MTUC top leader post began in 2019 as Halim Mansor, who was the MTUC president for the 2017-19 term, declared himself president following the party’s standing orders that the immediate past president shall continue as president if there was no outright winner in the election.

However, Halim said the general council meeting on March 20 refused to confirm his presidency, Halim said, and he had fought for his right to be declared the rightful president.

He had said that he had been barred from contesting the presidential post at the delegates’ conference this year because his nomination paper had not been sent to the correct email address,

It was also reported that Halim called the conference illegal under the MTUC constitution, which stated that elections must be held between October and December of the third year of the committee’s triennial term.

The delegates’ conference had been brought forward to this month by the MTUC council.