Former deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid Hamid is the new president of Umno after a tense neck-and-neck race earlier against former party youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin.

The Pemilihan Umno 2018 Twitter account, which is managed by the party, declared the victory official at 9.45pm.

As of 9.40pm, Zahid secured the votes of 93 divisions, while Khairy obtained 51.

Umno veteran Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah trailed far behind with just 23 votes.

Only votes from 24 divisions remain unaccounted for, meaning the most Khairy can get is 75 votes.

Khairy was a last minute entrant to the presidential race.

One Umno leader told Malaysiakini on condition of anonymity that Khairy could have won if he did not split votes, and had accepted Razaleigh's offer to stand in as a presidential candidate.

"Or if Khairy did not contest, Razaleigh could have won," the source said.

Umno's polls a winner-takes-all electoral college system, meaning whoever gets the most votes for a division gets one vote.

Besides Zahid, Khairy and Tengku Razaleigh, two lesser-known entrants also took part in the Umno presidential race – Mohamed Iqbal Maricair from the Bandar Tun Razak division, and Mohd Yusof Musa @ Jamaluddin from Iskandar Puteri.

Neither secured enough votes to win a division.