Dr M plugs for Rais

Dr M plugs for Rais

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 3 — In his quest to find the perfect replacement for Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as Umno president, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad believes that the person could be Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Rais Yatim.

Less than a fortnight ago the former prime minister thought International Trade and Industry Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin who is now party vice-president would be the right choice to succeed Abdullah.

Before that, he was promoting Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to take on Abdullah but has since thought the Umno deputy president would never make it.

“There are several leaders in Umno who are qualified to take over from (Abdullah), leaders who are not influenced by the greed of their families, leaders who are willing to make sacrifices in order to restore pre-eminent position of Umno within the Barisan Nasional.

“One of them could be Rais Yatim. Maybe in the end it would be Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, with Rais as deputy," he wrote in his blog chedet.com today.

Yesterday, the Jitra Umno branch under the Kubang Pasu division in Kedah nominated Rais and Muhyiddin to go for the No. 1 and 2 posts, respectively.

The branch deputy chairman is Dr Mahathir's son Datuk Mukhriz who is also Jerlun MP.

It has been reported that more than 60 Umno branches have nominated Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, Najib or Muhyiddin to go for either the No. 1 or 2 position while some branches preferred Abdullah to step down earlier than the transition plan to hand over power to Najib by 2010.

In his blog, Dr Mahathir continued his attacks on Abdullah, saying that the prime minister's coalition partners no longer showed much respect for him even though they themselves were weak.

"And the opposition openly declare they want (Abdullah) to go on leading simply because he is weak; a kind of backhanded compliment. To become strong he might want to embrace Pas as a coalition partner. Then he would have his two-third majority.

"To do this he will have to offer his sweeteners - his usual solution to all problems. Maybe he would offer a second deputy prime minister to (Pas president Datuk Seri)) Abdul Hadi Awang and ministership to some other Pas leaders," he said.

However, the former premier said BN coalition partners may not take kindly to this plan and BN with Pas as a member would be very shaky.

He added that such a coalition may give BN the two-third majority but would not likely please the electorate.

"By associating with Datuk Seri Abdullah, accepting the sweets and soft pedalling Pas's Islamic State raison d'etre, Pas is likely to lose support. The net gainer may be Parti Keadilan Rakyat,
Anwar notwithstanding. After all there is clear evidence that many voters voted PKR simply because they wanted to be rid of Datuk Seri Abdullah.

"Malay unity is not a matter of Malay political parties embracing each other. Malay unity should be entrusted to politically uncommitted Malays. Neither Umno nor Pas have the credibility needed for this task," he said.

kzso - it's proven that voters voted pr in the last ge (although brag by dap/pas/pkr that the voters voted for equality). the voters just want to get rid and/or give hard lessons to ydp pm pl, najib (rosmah), ong ka ting, samy velu, koh tsu koon, rafidah, kaveas, kj, shahrir, nazri, bung mokhtar, shapie apdal and other hp6 cabinet ministers/mps etc. it won't be a surprise if anwar wins in this by-election. he'll get solid support/votes from dap and pkr (although some will not vote for him), pas (50/50 or less) and umno members (protest votes although there may be spoilt votes or no voting from umno members ~ but it depends on umno strategies,candidate in this by-election). anwar may win but it is not because of voters like him but due to their protest votes to umno/bn leadership but it won't be a surprise if anwar will lose in this by-election.