In a rare interview , veteran Umno leader Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah tells malaysiakini about his political future, the economy, and his views on Anwar Ibrahim.

Malaysiakini: You spoke out often in public lately, for example at the Bar Council's Malaysia Law Conference.

Razaleigh:

It was a forum for me to speak and I thought there were things that needed to be spoken. I accepted the invitation because I saw the opportunity to air some concerns which have been in the minds of the public for so long.

Pak Lah has been in power for some 50 days. How do you assess his performance?

He is performing quite well and saying the right things up to now.

You almost became prime minister in 1987. You lost to Dr Mahathir Mohamad by 43 votes. Have you given up on your ambition to become PM?

No, I never dreamt (to be PM). When I came back from my studies, I wanted to be a banker... I went to see the late Tunku (Abdul Rahman) - he was like my uncle because my late father and him were very good friends. He said "no, no you must get involved in politics to help me" because I was involved in student politics in England. So I got involved in politics. But I never had the ambition to be prime minister or even a cabinet minister.

That's why if you look at my history, I was elected vice-president of Umno without holding any position in the cabinet. I was offered by Tunku and by late Tun (Abdul Razak) a position. Only later, Tunku was the one who insisted that I should join the cabinet even for one day because it was Tun Razak's wish before he passed away.

What about the fact that you challenged Dr Mahathir?

It was purely because of policy differences.

You have been in politics for a long time.

Quite long... may be it is in my blood.

There were times when leaders within the party considered you a threat.

May be some of them, but not all.

Even now?

What do you think?

Some people say you may challenge Prime Minister (Abdullah Ahmad Badawi).

Why me? I spoke in Parliament recently to support Pak Lah. It was during the debate over the motion of confidence to the new PM. In fact it was my first major speech for a long time. So the question of challenging him does not arise.

If there is enough nominations for you to contest the top party post in the next Umno elections, would you consider it?

Let us give him (Pak Lah) a chance. After all, 50 days after a strong leader like Mahathir, is not easy. Even the cabinet that is in power today is the same cabinet that he inherited from Mahathir. He hasn't formed his own cabinet yet. And even the party leadership, the supreme council of Umno, is still the same. It is not the team that he has structured for himself to be a leader.

How much time would you give Pak Lah to prove himself?

I am not in the position to answer this question. It is up to the people to decide.

What if Pak Lah cannot do so well in the general election, perhaps in Kelantan, Terengganu, Kedah dan Perlis?

Umno was at its lowest ebb during the 1999 general election especially among the Malay voters. Today Pak Lah will not have to face the same situation. I am sure, under him, the results could not be worse than that.

But how could Umno reverse the tide. It has lost some ground in the past few years.

As I said, the situation today cannot be worse than the last time, but there will be improvements if everyone goes back to basics. I have mentioned at the Law Conference that if you bring back all the things that we started at the beginning, which caught the imagination of the majority of our people, I think the people will come back. Stop the abuses, get rid of corruption, and they want participation.

The young... they are not the young people of 30 years ago. You tell them to go to school but you shut them up. I don't think they take that kindly. They don't like to be insulted in that way (because) ... you don't allow them to participate. Democracy is not only during the day you cast your ballot paper in the ballot box. It's (an) on-going (process).

For Umno to win back support from the Malays, it will have to resolve the (jailed ex-deputy premier) Anwar Ibrahim issue.

Anwar was party to a lot of things under Dr Mahathir. For example, he supported a lot of the so-called draconian laws - I was on the other side, don't forget that. Except that the Malays' cepat kesian (quick to sympathise), you know. They sympathised with the manner Anwar was removed and dragged to court. All the things that went on during the trial - they felt disgusted, they were angry.

You're the founder of Petronas, which has spent huge sums of money to support mega-projects such as the KLCC, Putrajaya, Formula 1 circuit. How do you feel about this?

I'm not going to particularise on these projects, but let's talk generally. I remember my time was considered the second phase of nationalism. The first phase was to liberate the country politically. The second phase was to liberate the country economically. We achieved our Merdeka, but our resources like rubber, palm oil, tin and oil still belonged to British companies. We had to take them back. We managed to take back Guthrie and Sime Darby. We got our tin from London Tin, which we now call MMC, and then through the formation of Petronas, we got back our oil which was given in perpetuity to Shell by the British Rajah.

Our mind then was focused on using these resources for nation building and social engineering. We thought that we could meet the objectives of NEP (New Economic Policy) on time. Through Petronas, we spent a lot of money for education, especially to produce new generation of Malay technocrats and future corporate leaders. That was our main priority those days.

Are you saying we got our priorities wrong?

You look at one example, water has always been a very important subject. I'm not talking about the problems with Singapore. We have any amount of water. The rainfall is fantastic, but yet Kelantan doesn't have clean water, and even Perak and Kuala Lumpur don't have enough water. You should be able to overcome these problems if you manage our resources well and are willing to invest in it.

What about the double-tracking railway project?

In term of priority, perhaps the fact that we don't have financial resources, I think it is good to shelve it.

Being a former finance minister, what are the problems confronting our economy?

Globalisation, Afta (Asean Free Trade Area) and WTO (World Trade Organisation) are just around the corner. We have to face them. How competitive are we? How diversified are we? Or rather, are we dependent on a few products and resources that are depleting? What about our human resource? Are we ready to compete with the rest of the world or are we still struggling to meet our basic needs?

How do you see your future?

I will play my part to support the party and I like to see Umno strong and continue to play its role for the Malays, the rakyat and the country. The rest I leave it to God.

So, no thoughts of retiring from politics?

As I said, politics is in my blood.