KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 20 — Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has said he works well with his Malaysian counterpart and is looking forward to forging closer ties even as Datuk Seri Najib Razak faces party elections next month that will decide his continued leadership of the country.

Singapore’s Lee Hsien Loong has said that he felt comfortable with both Najib and his predecessor Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, a remark that may help to bolster support for Najib to continue helming Malaysia as its sixth prime minister.

“I think, I have a pleasant collaboration with Abdullah and Najib,” Lee told reporters in an interview published today by Sin Chew Daily, the sole local Chinese-language daily invited to the ASEAN press interview.

Lee had stepped into office as Singapore’s third prime minister a few months after Abdullah won his mandate as Malaysia’s fifth prime minister at the 2004 Elections.

The son of Singapore’s founding father and first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, is seen to have played a key role in warming up the ties that bind the two Southeast Asian nations.

Najib yesterday said he will defend his post as Umno president, and may sail to a victory as no leaders in the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition’s mainstay party have declared their intention to challenge him for the post.

His deputy Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin yesterday erased mounting speculation that he would fight Najib at the party elections, announcing that he would himself nominate Najib for the Umno presidency.

Malaysia and Singapore have seen their frosty ties during the Mahathir administration thawing following the retirement of the country’s longest-serving prime minister in 2003, with Lee and Najib’s February announcement of a proposed high-speed rail link connecting Kuala Lumpur and Singapore signalling the warming of the two countries’ ties.

According to Lee, Singapore and Malaysia do not have a “love-hate” relationship, describing the two neighbouring ASEAN countries as being close trade partners instead.

“On September 16, 1963, we formed Malaysia together, but two years later, on August 9, 1965, left Malaysia, at that time we each went our own ways, but are still the nearest neighbours. We have much trade, we are very close economic partners,” he said, referring to the two countries’ geographical location.

Lee also noted that the two countries had managed to resolve some outstanding issues such as Malaysian railway company KTM Bhd’s land in Singapore, saying that the two ASEAN neighbours are happy with the progress of plans for joint-development.

“Our plans to have joint-ventures for flagship projects, two in Singapore, one... should also be two, one is in Malaysia’s Iskandar economic region, and I think both sides are very pleased with the progress of these plans. I hope there will be more collaboration plans,” he was quoted saying by Sin Chew.

In the same interview, Lee disagreed that the Malays, a minority group in Singapore, were being sidelined in the island republic.

While observing that the Malay community was initially behind the Chinese and Indian community, the two other major ethnic groups in Singapore, Lee indicated that they were fast catching up.

“Of course, the existing gap between the ethnic groups have not been fully eradicated, the overall performance of the Malay community, compared to the Chinese and Indians are still behind, but the Malay community is continuously improving.

Lee said the Malay community were no longer limited in their jobs, pointing out that many of them are now working as lawyers, engineers, doctors and in the finance sector.

Malaysia’s Umno-controlled daily Utusan Malaysia and its columnist Ridhuan Tee Abdullah had previously claimed that the Malay community in Singapore was being marginalised, using this argument to attack Lee’s father’s criticism that Malaysia’s affirmative action policy to aid Malays had caused the country’s brain drain problem to worsen.

Utusan Malaysia had claimed that the meritocracy practised in Singapore was “cosmetic”, while Ridhuan Tee suggested that the island republic was also practising the same racial discrimination that Lee had criticised.

In his book “One Man’s View of the World” that was launched last month, Lee Kuan Yew said Malaysia was prepared to bleed talent “in order to maintain the dominance of one race”.

Last week, Najib announced a list of loans and programmes worth RM31 billion to help boost the participation of Bumiputera in the Malaysian economy, among other things.

Analysts criticised the Bumiputera agenda unveiled by Najib as reversing his previous promises to roll back race-based policies, saying that it was a politically-motivated decision in line with the upcoming Umno elections.

Nominations for the Umno supreme council elections will be held on September 28 and voting on October 19.

Nominations for the Wanita, Youth and Puteri wings will be held on September 21, with theirs to be chosen during their respective meetings on October 12.