Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has accepted responsibility for his ruling coalition’s poor election results and will plan how to hand over power to his deputy after December, an official and news reports said yesterday.
Abdullah assured party officials at a private meeting late on Friday that he would discuss a succession plan with his deputy, Najib Razak, a party official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make statements.
Speaking to reporters after the talks in southern Johor state, Abdullah acknowledged that some officials in the ruling United Malays National Organization party (UMNO) had called for him to resign after last month’s general elections.
“There have been demands,” Abdullah was quoted as saying by the national news agency, Bernama. “I feel I am the reason for the spoiled votes for the [ruling coalition] and I feel responsible to do what’s best to rehabilitate” the government.
Consumer Affairs Minister Shahrir Samad said details of how and when Abdullah will hand over power would be determined after the UMNO holds its annual congress in December.
“Abdullah will sort the matter out with Najib after the UMNO general assembly,” Shahrir told Bernama. “We will work together till the general assembly.”
International Trade Minister Muhyiddin indicated that no deadline had been set for Abdullah to step down, saying “the period of transition and so on were not mentioned in detail” during Friday’s talks, Bernama reported.
Abdullah, 68, began hinting at a power transition last week when he identified Najib as his probable successor. Abdullah took office in October 2003 after being hand-picked by former leader Mahathir Mohamad, who has spearheaded a campaign to oust Abdullah in recent weeks.
The prime minister has faced the brunt of the blame for crippling setbacks suffered by the National Front ruling coalition in the March 8 general elections. The coalition, led by Abdullah’s party, lost its two-thirds majority in parliament as well as control of five state legislatures.
Abdullah said after Friday’s meeting that he wanted to remain in power for a while longer to try to resolve public grievances about issues such as corruption, crime and racial disputes.
“It is not that I want to carry on helming the party for a long time,” Bernama quoted the prime minister as saying. “I have to discharge my duties and I feel duty-bound to ensure that all problems are resolved. That is the priority.”
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion