It is possible that Agong Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin may not appoint Najib Abdul Razak as prime minister despite being Umno president, said Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah.
Razaleigh, a veteran Umno leader, pointed to last year’s decision by the king, who is also Terengganu sultan, in refusing to endorse the Umno leadership’s nominee Idris Jusoh as menteri besar for his state.
Eventually Umno backed down and the king’s choice, Ahmad Said, became menteri besar.
“He (the king) could probably appoint someone other than the man nominated by the party,” said Razaleigh, a Kelantan prince and uncle of Sultan Ismail Petra.
Razaleigh was asked by Malaysiakini to comment on former de factolaw minister Zaid Ibrahim who had on Wednesday urged the king not to appoint Najib as PM.
Going gets tough for BN
Razaleigh also said that Barisan Nasional will face a “tough” fight in the next general elections, expected to be held in three years.
“Don’t forget, there are going to be six million new voters, so we’ve been told - two million who missed the vote in the last election and the four million others in the coming years. So you have six million plus who will be testing us.”
He said that the ruling coalition will find it difficult to win the April 7 bellwether by-election in Bukit Gantang - a parliamentary seat in Perak that will be a ‘referendum’ on the BN takeover of the state government there.
Razaleigh, 71, a former finance minister, was a heartbeat away from becoming prime minister in 1987 after a power struggle within Umno in which he challenged Dr Mahathir Mohamad for party president and lost by a wafer-thin majority of 43 votes.
He had since run twice for Umno presidency - in 2004 against Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and more recently against Najib Abdul Razak. But both times he failed to secure the required nominations from Umno divisions to qualify for the contest.
Razaleigh ironically said he “cannot see” Najib resorting to repressive measures against his critics when he becomes prime minister. He would prefer Najib not play dirty.
“If he wants to improve his image with the people then he has to come clean. You have ways, go to the court or do things that will be accepted by the people - not to use force or power because that will put him in a worse position that he is experiencing now.”
The following is the second of a four-part interview conducted at Razaleigh’s palatial home-cum-office in Ampang dubbed as the ‘White House’.
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