Umno vice-president Muhammad Muhd Taib said today he will abide by the party's tradition which allows the president to appoint his deputy in the party and government in order to avoid a split in Umno.

He said this tradition has been in practice since the time of the first prime minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman. In 1951, Tunku appointed Abdul Razak Hussein, who later became prime minister, as his deputy.

"Party unity is of utmost importance to me. I personally want the party to be strong. It's no point to fight over party posts if you cannot win the general election," the former Selangor menteri besar told malaysiakini .

Taib — who is among those said to be in the running for the deputy prime minister post — was commenting on Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad's statement yesterday that another vice-president, Najib Tun Razak, may assume the post.

Mahathir, who will step down as prime minister and Umno president next October said this during a meeting with Kedah's Kubang Pasu Umno division committee members at his office in Putrajaya.

The 76-year-old premier's position will be assumed by Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

No contest

Asked if Mahathir's statement meant that there would be no contest for the Umno deputy president post during the party elections scheduled for next June, Taib replied: "That's according to you...you can make your own assumptions about that possibility."

He added that a similar process was exercised by Razak when he appointed Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman and later Hussein Onn, as his deputies in the party and government.

After Hussein's retirement in 1981, Mahathir became Umno president and by convention, prime minister as well. His appointment was unanimously endorsed by the party general assembly in July of that year.

Prior to his appointment, Mahathir was one of the three party vice-presidents. The others were Ghafar Baba and Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah.

While the transition of power from Hussein to Mahathir was smooth, a bitter struggle erupted between then education minister Musa Hitam, and then finance minister Razaleigh, over the deputy presidency-cum-deputy prime minister post.

Although Mahathir appeared to be neutral, it was an open secret that he supported Musa who eventually won the contest with a narrow margin of 205 votes.

Another well known fact was that when Hussein became the third prime minister in 1976, he wanted to appoint the then powerful home minister and Razak-confidante, Ghazali Shafie, as his deputy.

However, Ghazali was not an Umno vice-president and this led the three vice-presidents, Mahathir, Ghafar and Razaleigh, to gang-up and demand that Hussein pick one of them as his deputy instead.

Najib's chances

In 1999, when Abdullah was made deputy prime minister, he was not the vice-president who garnered the highest number of votes during the party election three years earlier.

In that election, Najib secured the most votes — 1,483. Abdullah received 1,053 votes while Taib 1,045.

In the 2000 party election, Najib, who is also defence minister, secured 1,289 votes, Taib 853 and Muhiyidin Yassin 813.

Based on this, if the party election scheduled for next year is cancelled, Najib will most probably be the country's next deputy premier.