Abdullah May Quit as Malaysian Premier Before 2010 (Update2)
By Manirajan Ramasamy and Angus Whitley
Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, under siege from a resurgent opposition, ceded the role of finance minister to his deputy and signaled a faster- than-scheduled transfer of power.
An agreed handover to Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak in June 2010 is ``flexible,'' Abdullah, 68, said today in Putrajaya, the government's administrative home near Kuala Lumpur.
``If I want to leave before 2010, I can do that,'' Abdullah told reporters. ``I will hand over certain duties to him from time to time.''
Abdullah has resisted calls from former ministers and ruling party lawmakers to step down after leading the ruling coalition in March to its worst election result in five decades. Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who has pledged to scrap Malaysia's system of preferences for the majority Malays, yesterday asked to meet the prime minister to discuss a handover.
``His position is getting weaker and weaker by the day,'' said Koh Huat Soon, a fund manager at PacificMas Asset Management in Kuala Lumpur. ``We don't get the sense that he is really firmly in control. You have growing dissent within his own ranks. It has increased the uncertainty.''
The country's main stock index extended declines after Abdullah's comments. The Kuala Lumpur Composite Index was down 1.1 percent at 4:38 p.m. in the Malaysian capital.
`Anwar's Threat'
Abdullah, who today took over as defense minister from Najib, 55, called Anwar a threat to Malaysia's economy and security. He said he had no plans to meet the 61-year-old opposition leader, who claims to have gained the support of most of Malaysia's lawmakers.
The Sabah Progressive Party, with two federal legislators, today said it's leaving the ruling National Front coalition. Abdullah's administration has lost the respect of the people and moral authority to rule, the party said in a statement on its Web site, without stating if it was joining Anwar.
The ruling coalition, in power since Malaysia's independence from Britain in 1957, lost a record number of parliamentary seats and its two-thirds majority in this year's elections. Anwar's People Alliance won control of an unprecedented five of Malaysia's 13 states. It fell 30 seats short of ousting Abdullah's coalition.
Abdullah is retaining some control by taking over the defense ministry from Najib as he faces challenges to his leadership, said Mavis Puthucheary, a former senior associate fellow at the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies who is now an independent analyst.
Security Forces
Defense ``at this stage is a very crucial portfolio,'' she said. Abdullah has rejected opposition suggestions that he may use security forces to bolster his rule after detaining an opposition lawmaker and an anti-government blogger last week.
Malaysia's law minister resigned to protest the arrests, which were made under a colonial-era security law allowing detention without trial.
Abdullah's announcement today follows mounting calls to step down from within his United Malays National Organisation, or UMNO, the largest party in the ruling coalition. Trade and Industry Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, also a vice president of UMNO, had called for Abdullah to quit sooner than his proposed date to help restore public confidence.
Abdullah said in July he would step down in June 2010, though would seek re-election as party president at internal yearend polls. The following month, Anwar returned to parliament for the first time in a decade after winning a by-election.
To contact the reporters on this story: Manirajan Ramasamy in Kuala Lumpur at rmanirajan@bloomberg.netAngus Whitley in Kuala Lumpur at awhitley1@bloomberg.net
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