It appears there is not much wiggle room for the leaders of Umno's coalition partners in the peninsula, as pressure mounts for them to find suitable seats to contest in the face of possible snap polls anytime from now till next year.

If Umno president and BN chairperson Najib Abdul Razak does indeed call for a general election at the end of this year as speculated, the reading is that things would most likely be sticky at best for the presidents of Umno's four key BN partners - MCA, MIC, Gerakan and PPP.

This is the very first time where the presidents of the four BN component parties will face a general election without being elected representatives themselves, having suffered a near wipeout from the opposition Pakatan Rakyat in the watershed March 2008 polls...