Prime Minister and Umno president Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s talk of a power transition is unconstitutional as far as party rules are concerned, said party veteran Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah.

Met after attending a briefing for BN parliamentarians in Istana Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, Razaleigh said the plan will deny Umno members their constitutional right to vote for whoever they see fit to head the party.

bn mp retreat forum 180408 01 "Only the party election can decide who will head Umno. Do not invalidate the party constitution," said the Gua Musang MP when a reporter told him that the party supreme council has decided that Umno’s deputy president Najib Razak will automatically succeed Abdullah.

Since the March 8 elections, Razaleigh has been attacking Abdullah and attributing the party’s poor election performance to him.

Razaleigh said that "technically the terms of all the current leaders, be it branch or division chief or even the supreme council have expired."

"(It has been more than three years since the last party elections) and the time for election should have been held last year but was postponed due to the March 8 polls," he said, adding that there should not be any talks of transition of power.

He said anybody elected by party members to any posts in the party will be the legitimate leaders as far as the party constitution is concerned.

"I don’t understand this idea of transition of power. As long as I have been in the party there was never the question of transition of power," he added.

What about Dr M?

The former finance minister was also asked to clarify past Umno president Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s act of handpicking the new party president.

mahathir hulu langat 120408 press conference Razaleigh said it was done before Mahathir’s term as party president had expired.

In the wake of the March 8 general elections, Razaleigh sent a letter to all party leaders urging them to convene an extraordinary general meeting to discuss the electoral debacle.

Asked if he was going to continue to contest for the party presidency now that his move is seen as having received poor feedback, Razaleigh said it all depends on circumstances.

"Let’s see how many nominations I get. If it suffices, you will see me there (contesting)," he replied.

Khairy on the keris

Meanwhile, Abdullah’s son-in-law and Umno deputy Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin who has been evading the media radar was also present to give comments on the March 8 polls.

bn mp retreat forum 180408 03 The Rembau MP conceded that the keris-wielding incident had contributed to the reduction of votes towards Umno and BN.

However, he said the incident was not the sole contributor to Umno and BN’s poor performance though he did not elaborate as to what the other factors were.

Khairy dismissed the allegation that he won the Rembau seat by cheating via the use of postal votes.

"They counted the postal votes first and not after the recount. Even if the postal votes are not counted, I would have won by some 500 over votes," he said.

The Rembau March 8 results became controversial after the first count saw Khairy’s PKR opponent winning by some 800 majority votes.

This result however turned after Khairy demanded a recount. Following this, he was declared a winner by a majority of 5,726 votes.