Ahmad Zahid Hamidi is not the immediate successor to Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, said former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Mahathir said that Muhyiddin Yassin, as deputy president of Umno, could take on the job.

"It is for Umno to decide. Not just for Zahid or Najib only. Umno still has an elected deputy president. Zahid is not the elected (deputy president)," Mahathir ( photo ) told reporters today.

He added that Muhyiddin was removed from Najib's cabinet despite having done nothing wrong.

Najib picked Zahid to replace Muhyiddin as deputy prime minister late last month.

Mahathir also dismissed Najib's statement in Malacca on Aug 1 that he would not step down as the Umno president because three million party members were firmly behind him.

Resorting to money politics

Mahathir said even Umno members think Najib's leadership to be unsatisfactory and accused him of resorting to money politics to bribe leaders to be on his side.

"Now, I heard Umno members themselves saying that they are not satisfied with Najib's leadership. They asked Najib to step down but he refused. He gave money to everyone because he did not want to step down. That is wrong.

"Even I am an Umno member (who do not support Najib)," he said.

Earlier in a blog post, Mahathir slammed Najib's explanation to the Umno grassroots over the past week that the RM2.6 billion "donations" that he had held in his personal accounts were for party use.

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