UMNO delegates will decide on when the party elections should be held and if there should be a contest for the top two posts, party president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said.

However, he said the party need not wait until May – end of the six-month period after the recent general election – for the polls to be held.

The party polls were postponed due to the general election. Umno’s constitution allows for a maximum of six-month postponement.

Umno will be holding its general assembly from January 11-14.

Zahid also noted that the party polls are not held during the general assembly but done simultaneously with the delegates’ division conference.

“A total of 191 divisions will simultaneously hold a conference nationwide and hold divisional and central leadership elections,” Zahid said in a live-streamed interview on the NRChannel TV YouTube channel last night.

“This means there is no need to wait for a period of six months for party elections. It may be held earlier.

“We must remember that March 22 or 23 is already Ramadan, then it will be Syawal and the month of haj.”

In the interview, Zahid also touched on the issue of allowing challenges for the post of president and deputy president.

There have been calls from within Umno that these two positions should not be challenged to allow the incumbents – Zahid and his deputy Mohamad Hasan – to continue.

However, there have also been calls that elections must be held for the two posts.

Zahid said he was in favour of the positions being contested despite a decision made at the 2017 Umno general assembly that there should be no contest.

“(But) as a democrat, I will leave it to the delegates to decide,” he said.

On Monday, Umno secretary-general Ahmad Maslan said the party’s Supreme Council has not made a decision on whether the two posts will be contested in the coming party elections. – December 28, 2022.