[UPDATED] GE15: Ismail Sabri must be Umno chief if he’s PM after election, says Khairy

KUALA LUMPUR – Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob must lead Umno if he becomes prime minister after the 15th general election (GE15), Khairy Jamaluddin said.

This is part of efforts to rejuvenate Umno which will begin soon after the national polls when the party holds its own election, the Barisan Nasional (BN) hopeful for the Sg Buloh parliamentary seat said in a radio interview with BFM 89.9.

“If he becomes PM, when he becomes PM, after this weekend, he must lead the party.

“There must not be a dichotomy anymore between president of the party and leader of government,” Khairy said when asked if the rejuvenation of Umno will see Ismail Sabri running for party president.

In the interview, the caretaker health minister said he wanted to see other young leaders in Umno win in their divisions and “replace entrenched older leaders” when the party holds its internal election within six months after the date of GE15.

“This (rejuvenation) is not a five- to ten-year project, this is going to happen right after the election. We want you (Ismail Sabri) to be PM and to lead.”

Khairy, who has been open about his disagreements with current Umno president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, said he has also been upfront with Ismail Sabri about wanting him to be prime minister again.

“And I think we’ll see a change of guard at the top – Ismail (Sabri), Hishammuddin (Hussein), myself – we’re quite firm on where we want to take Umno to make sure our image is restored from the past few years,” the former Umno Youth chief said.

He also said that while Umno was not the only party that had leaders facing corruption trials, those facts about Zahid and jailed former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak cannot be denied.

“I’ve also told Ismail Sabri that (no interference in the judicial process) must be our position when we are back in power,” Khairy added.

Khairy also said people should remember that he had run against Zahid for the Umno presidency in 2018, after BN lost the general election that year.

Besides him and Zahid, there were three other candidates for the top Umno post, including party veteran Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah (Ku Li).

“I stood for the presidency right after the last election. He (Zahid) didn’t win easy, Ku Li was the spoiler. If our votes combined, I would have become president of Umno,” Khairy told BFM.

He also said he felt the GE15 campaign was the right time to declare his own prime ministerial ambitions as the last two years of handling the Covid-19 pandemic had prepared him.

“I didn’t want to declare my aspirations before I handled something as big as that. I think I did well in steering the country out of the pandemic.

“That experience has led me to make the offer (to be prime minister), not today, but in five to ten years.” – The Vibes, November 15, 2022