Najib to meet top BN leaders today

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is expected be hold a closed-door meeting with all Barisan Nasional (BN) component party leaders in Putrajaya today.

This meeting, it is believed, is being held to discuss final preparations for BN before Najib announces the dissolution of Parliament, which will then pave way for the 13th general election to take place.

A BN component party leader confirmed this meeting with Astro Awani but declined to reveal further details. It is understood that the meeting will be held from noon onwards.

The Prime Minister this morning has a scheduled function at 9am where he is to visit the Kuala Lumpur Hospital to officiate the Specialist and Daily Treatment Complex.

Najib, who is also the BN chairman, had reportedly met the Yang di-Pertuan Agong at Istana Negara yesterday. However, while the Prime Minister’s Office did not reveal any information about the meeting, it is believed that it was merely a normal weekly meeting with the King.

News of the royal meeting was enough to spark excitement on Twitter over speculations that Parliament will be dissolved yesterday itself.

The last time Najib held a meeting with BN component party leaders was at the Supreme Council Meeting in February 8.

Political observers see the closed-door meeting today as a strong indicator that Parliament will be dissolved in the near future. It was also understood that the Prime Minister’s Office has also begun preparations for the announcement.

Several media reports before this predicted that Najib will dissolve Parliament before mid March and that elections will be held in the second week of April.

The Parliament’s mandate expires in April 28 before it automatically dissolves in accordance to the law, and the Election Commission (EC) can hold the general election within 60 days after that.

At the same time, the Johor and Negeri Sembilan state assemblies will be dissolved later in the next two weeks, March 21 and 26 respectively.

The early dissolution of the state assemblies, however, does not necessarily mean that the state elections will be held separately with Parliamentary elections as the EC has discretion over the date of elections.

EC chairman Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof had before this said that eventhough the state assemblies are dissolved in different dates, the EC can still hold simultaneous elections for parliament and state assemblies as long as it falls within the fixed 60-day period after dissolution.

At the same time, Najib has a series of events at the end of this week and next week which will be watched closely by political observers.

He will be visiting Kelantan tomorrow and will stop by several districts namely Kuala Krai, Jeli, Tanah Merah and Kota Bharu, and among other things will be launching a housing project.

On March 17, Najib is scheduled to attend a programme organised by the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development

Two days after that, he will be releasing the annual reports for the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) and Government Transformation Programme (GTP) -- two major projects under his administration since he became Prime Minister in April 2009.