KUALA LUMPUR, June 26 — Khairy Jamaluddin today said he has no plans to make Umno part of the ruling government again through negotiations, but will instead fulfil the public’s wish for it to be a credible Opposition party.

Khairy, who is one of the five candidates eyeing the Umno president post, said he accepted the 14th general election results — which saw the party and the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition it belongs to suffer a crushing defeat and lose federal power for the first time.

"I don’t plan to negotiate with anyone to save Umno to be part of the government.

"Malaysians want to see us susah (suffer), they want to see whether we can survive as the Opposition or not.

"They say Pakatan was previously the Opposition for years, they can still carry out their struggle,” he said in an interview that was broadcast "live” by television channel Astro Awani tonight.

"So for me, it’s very, very humbling, but we have to accept and we have to take up the public’s wishes for Umno and Barisan Nasional to rise up to be a credible Opposition,” he added.

Khairy’s comments appear to fly in the face of those made by one of his rivals for the post, Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who is the acting party president.

Zahid had yesterday reportedly hinted that Umno could return to power without having to win the required votes in another general election, alluding to the existence of good ties with politicians in the current ruling coalition Pakatan Harapan (PH).

In Malaysia, politicians have been known to trigger a change in the political fortunes of state governments by switching allegiances or jumping from one party to another.

BN suffered its worst electoral performance in GE14, and was reduced to a coalition of three component parties from 13 as other partners quit or switched allegiance.

BN's remaining three race-based parties representing the Malays, Chinese, and Indians are Umno which has 54 parliamentary seats, MCA and MIC which hold one and two federal seats respectively.

In terms of numbers of federal seats held, Umno is currently the largest party in Parliament.

A total of 112 parliamentary seats are required for any political party or political coalition to achieve simple majority and form the federal government.