Umno strongman Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah has dismissed speculation that he might challenge acting president and Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi for the top post in the coming party election.

"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," he said .

Umno, which deferred its polls last year until after the next general election, must hold elections for party posts this year. The general election is due by November.

Razaleigh, a former finance minister, said the newly-minted prime minister (also known as Pak Lah) should be given the support he needs to prove himself.

"Let us give him (Abdullah) a chance. After all, 50 days after a strong leader like Dr Mahathir (Mohamad)...it's not easy. Even the cabinet that is in power today is the same cabinet that he inherited from Dr Mahathir," he said in an exclusive two-hour interview at his palatial home-cum-office in Ampang, dubbed the 'White House'.

"(Abdullah) hasn't formed his own cabinet yet. And even the party leadership, the supreme council of Umno is still the same one. It is not the team that he has structured for himself to be a leader."

Razaleigh, who rarely speaks to the media, was guarded throughout the interview - much of what he said was off the record.

Too early to tell

The 66-year-old Umno veteran also said that it was too early to assess Abdullah's performance since he had only been in power for 50 days (at the time of the interview).

He did venture the opinion, though, that Abdullah "is performing quite well and saying the right thing up to now".

On how much time Abdullah will be given to prove himself, Razaleigh said: "I am not in the position to answer this question. It is up to the people to decide."

Razaleigh almost became prime minister in 1987 in a power struggle within Umno, which would have also determined the nation's leadership. He took on Mahathir, who went on to win the president's post by a wafer-thin majority of 43 votes.

When Umno was later declared illegal by the court due to certain irregularities among its branches, Razaleigh and his supporters broke away to form opposition party Semangat 46.

Mahathir went on to establish Umno Baru (New Umno), though the word 'baru' was later dropped.

Semangat 46 contested in two general elections - in 1990 and 1995 - as part of an opposition coalition, but failed to perform up to expectations. Its candidates won only eight and six parliamentary seats respectively.

Razaleigh and his splinter party returned to Umno's fold seven years later as all was forgiven.

During the interview, however, Razaleigh took pains to stress that he had no aspiration to be prime minister, saying that his feud with Mahathir was "purely because of policy differences".

A threat?

Razaleigh said Abdullah must arrest the erosion of the Malay support for Umno.

Asked how Umno could reverse the tide, Razaleigh said the party should "go back to basics".

"If you bring back all the things that we started from the beginning, which caught the imagination of the majority of our people, I think people will come back. Stop the abuses, get rid of corruption...," he said.

He also hoped that Abdullah would allow more public participation - especially from among youth - in decision making processes.

"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 on the day you cast your ballot. It's (an) ongoing (process)."

Asked whether there were times when leaders within the party had considered him as a threat, Razaleigh quipped: "May be some of them, but not all..."

In a lighter vein, he revealed that he has kept himself healthy through a regime of yoga, Qi Gong and swimming.

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