Umno supreme council member Norza Zakaria's fate as to whether he can retain his seat in next week's party polls will be decided on Monday, said party secretary-general Tengku Adnan Mansor today.

norza zakaria interview 080807 serious As of now, Norza ( left ) who has been charged for his alleged involvement in money politics is still technically eligible to contest.

Briefing the media on the annual general assembly at the Umno headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, Tengku Adnan said the case is still pending.

"We are still waiting for some clearance because we are still checking (the matter) but (if he's disqualified) it would be 49 candidates (that will contest for the supreme council posts). By Monday, we should know," he said.

He further explained that Norza's case involved the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and there is also some "confusion" over the matter.

However, he did not elaborate on this, beyond saying that MACC had asked the party's disciplinary board to investigate the matter and the party will seek clarification on the matter soon.

Norza has claimed trial to two charges of offering inducements to party delegates through his agents to vote for him.

He is alleged to have committed the offences on Jan 20, 2009 at 6.30pm at No 38, Pinggiran Tasik, Taman Bandar Temerloh, in Temerloh.

He is charged with giving Khadri Musa RM1,500 through his agent Halimi Kamaruzzaman to be distributed to party delegates.

Norza is also charged with giving RM1,900 to Mohammad Anuar Yunus, also through Halimi Kamaruzzaman, for the same purpose.

256 candidates contesting

Meanwhile, Tengku Adnan revealed that 256 candidates will be contesting for all the posts exclusive of the president post which current number two Najib Abdul Razak has secured uncontested.

umno agm 2009 tengku adnan mansor pc 200309 02 Polling for the top posts in the Youth, Wanita and Puteri wings will take place on Wednesday at 11am and the result is expected to be announced at 9pm on the same day itself.

All eyes however will be on the next day where polling for the party's powerful number two post will take place.

It is also the day where other Umno leaders will be aspiring to wrest other senior posts in the party including that of vice-presidency and in the supreme council.

Polling begins at 11am and the result is expected to be announced on the same day at 10pm or 11 pm.

Eight candidates will be eying the three vice-presidency seats while 50 candidates - including Norza - will be contesting for the 25 supreme council posts.

As of now, a total of 4,885 delegates have been registered to vote in the party's general assembly which will take place for five days from March 24 to March 28.

Among the programme list, the party will hold a special dinner to commemorate the services of current party president Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on Thursday night.

Tengku Adnan said it is an Umno tradition to hold such dinners for their outgoing president. He also said it is a tradition for the party to invite former Umno leaders and Dr Mahathir Mohamad has been invited as an observer.

Mahathir however has yet to decide on whether or not he would attend.

Also invited to observe the event are representatives from 45 political parties hailing from 42 countries and 63 delegates from the 70 Umno overseas club have confirmed their attendance.

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