Razaleigh to run for top UMNO posts
Razaleigh to run for top UMNO posts
KUALA LUMPUR (Agencies): Former finance minister Razaleigh Hamzah was nominated on Friday to run against Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and his deputy for the top two leadership posts in Malaysia's dominant party.
Razaleigh received support from the Tanah Merah division in his home state of Kelantan, the official Bernama news agency said. It was the first division in the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) to nominate Razaleigh for the top posts.
The division defied UMNO's Supreme Council which had recommended that Mahathir and Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi be nominated without opposition to the party's presidency and vice presidency.
Before Tanah Merah nominated Razaleigh, Mahathir and Abdullah had won the support of the 17 UMNO divisions which had met this month. A total of 165 divisions will nominate their candidates by April 2. The UMNO leadership elections are set for May 11.
Razaleigh narrowly lost to Mahathir in the vote for UMNO president in 1987 when the party split in two. The 62-year-old prince from Kelantan returned to UMNO in 1996.
Mahathir's sacking of his former deputy Anwar Ibrahim has alienated some UMNO members and given an opening to Razaleigh, who indicated on Thursday that he would run against Mahathir or Abdullah if nominated.
Candidates need the support of 50 divisions to run for president and 33 for deputy president.
Mahathir has cautioned his former arch-rival against running for one of the top two leadership posts in the country's main party.
Mahathir was quoted in the Star newspaper as saying Razaleigh was free to contest any post in their United Malays National Organization (UMNO) party, but he hoped the prince would put the party's interests first.
"If someone takes into account only his self-interest and does not care if the party is destroyed in the process, then it means that his loyalty towards the struggles of the party is not deep," Mahathir was quoted as saying.
"I believe that Razaleigh is loyal to the party and he will not contest certain posts," Mahathir told Malaysian nationals on Thursday during a two-day trip to Jakarta.
Lawyer
In another development, more than 100 lawyers urged Malaysian legal authorities on Friday to drop a sedition charge against advocate Karpal Singh over comments he made in court while defending ex-deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim.
The prosecution of a lawyer for comments in court is unprecedented in the Commonwealth of former British colonies and will cause "irreparable injury to justice," the 109 lawyers say in a resolution to the Bar Council.
The council, representing all 8,000 lawyers in Malaysia, is meeting March 18 to debate the charge against Karpal, who is also deputy chairman of the opposition Democratic Action Party.
He was one of five opposition figures charged in January and bailed pending trial, in an operation widely criticized overseas. Sedition is punishable by up to three years' jail.
The resolution, dated on Friday and obtained by AFP, says it is "an established and entrenched principle and rule of law" in the Commonwealth and in Common Law that lawyers enjoy absolute privilege for all statements during legal proceedings.
"It is not merely a right but the duty of advocates to speak out fearlessly in a court of law," it says.
The resolution urges the attorney-general to drop the charge against Karpal, saying he would be setting "a dangerous and unfair precedent" if he goes ahead.
It calls on him and the government to respect "the rights of an independent bar and an independent legal profession."
The Kuala Lumpur Bar Committee has submitted a similar resolution. Lawyers say the Bar Council is expected overwhelmingly to support the calls.