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.