Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah

Exit from UMNO and formation of Semangat 46

Tengku Razaleigh challenged Mahathir in the 1987 UMNO leadership election, teaming up with former Deputy Prime Minister Musa Hitam, who had in the year prior resigned from Mahathir's cabinet owing to some conflict with the Prime Minister. Mahathir's then Deputy Prime Minister, Ghafar Baba, contested against Musa for the Deputy Presidency. This led to UMNO being split into two camps, i.e. "Team A" and "Team B" with Mahathir and Razaleigh as leaders of the respective camps. Mahathir managed to retain his party president position by a mere 43 votes and Musa lost by 40 votes. The election was held on a Friday, and coinciding with the Friday prayers, it is alleged that many used this opportunity to "buy" votes from delegates in order to have them cast a vote for their leader.

There were many who changed camps at the last minute, including Najib Razak who was then the leader of UMNO's Youth Wing, who ended up endorsing Mahathir. It has also been alleged by Razaleigh's camp that while the votes were being counted and Razaleigh was leading, a "black-out" had suddenly occurred whereby the room lost electricity. This was especially curious as the rooms adjacent to where the votes were being counted did not experience the same. After the electric power was back on, Razaleigh's lead was slowly erased and Mahathir was eventually declared the winner.

This left Razaleigh and his Team B supporters unsatisfied. A few Team B leaders had claimed many party delegates were improperly elected. They eventually took UMNO to court and filed suit to overturn the election after finding discrepancies throughout the voting process. The courts found that some of the delegates that voted were ineligible and UMNO was thus declared illegal on technical grounds in 1988. Despite Mahathir's camp blaming Razaleigh for UMNO being declared an unlawful party although Razaleigh was not among the twelve plaintiffs, he was widely believed to be funding and co-ordinating the suit. The event did not please Mahathir began making heated attacks on the judiciary and it was considered a judicial intervention of the political dispute triggering the 1988 Malaysian constitutional crisis. Mahathir immediately reconstituted UMNO as UMNO Baru (New UMNO), with only Team A members. Most of its leaders, however, were selected from Team A of the old UMNO, with Team B ignored. UMNO Baru was later announced the de facto and de jure party to succeed its predecessor, the original but 'illegal' UMNO, dropping the 'Baru' suffix and have the old UMNO's assets transferred over too.

Razaleigh and his supporters which constituted Team B, had faced difficulties to register as members of Team A's newly formed UMNO Baru. With the personal support of former UMNO prime ministers Tunku Abdul Rahman, Razaleigh who had also failed registering "UMNO 46" had founded a new political party called Parti Melayu Semangat 46 (S46 or Semangat 46) instead. The number 46 refers to the year the original UMNO was founded. On 3 June 1989, Semangat 46 was officially registered with the electoral college. Among notable leaders that joined Semangat 46 were including Marina Yusoff, Ilyani Ishak, Rais Yatim, Harun Idris, Suhaimi Kamaruddin, Ahmad Shabery Cheek, Othman Saat, Salleh Abas, Mohd Radzi Sheikh Ahmad, Tengku Azlan Sultan Abu Bakar and Ibrahim Ali. In 1990, Semangat 46 also formed Gagasan Rakyat (GR) and Angkatan Perpaduan Ummah (APU) opposition coalitions.

In the 1993 Malaysian constitutional crisis, Razaleigh strongly opposed the amendment for Rulers to be tried at court and their legal immunity be stripped. However, his efforts failed to bear fruit as it did not gain enough support. In 1996, Tengku Razaleigh disbanded Semangat 46 and rejoined UMNO.

Return to UMNO

Tengku Razaleigh return to UMNO as he has discussed earlier with Mahathir after the dissolution of Semangat 46 in 1996. Mahathir dismissed allegations that he brought Razaleigh back to check the influence of Anwar Ibrahim in the party and government.

As Anwar was sacked from UMNO in 1998, Mahathir himself brought Razaleigh back into the limelight again in June 1999 by making him the UMNO Kelantan liaison chief, a job the PM had held himself since 1987, Razaleigh could well been Mahathir's heir apparent if he had defeated PAS and won his home state.

In 2004, he announced his interest for the UMNO top post yet again but failed to garner enough nominations to contest the presidency. In 2008, Razaleigh had again expressed his interest in becoming prime minister, hoping to replace Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. However, his movement also did not get enough traction to seriously contest against Najib Razak for the post.

On 22 July 2011, Razaleigh launched a non-Government Organisation (NGO), Angkatan Amanah Merdeka (Amanah), at Memorial Tunku Abdul Rahman to revive and restore the spirit of Merdeka among Malaysians. The aim of NGO led by Razaleigh himself, along with several other political figures and prominent activists were dubious and some have demanded it transforms to a political party and join the opposition in the coming general election.

After the 2018 general election (GE14) which see the downfall of BN federal government and Najib's resignation as President of UMNO, Razaleigh contested the post of party president for a second time in the 2018 UMNO leadership election but lost to former Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi in a three-corner fight along with former Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin.

He was made the Chairman of the Advisory Council of UMNO afterwards. Razaleigh somehow had sent the resignation letter from the UMNO post dated 20 September 2021 to the party caretaker President Ahmad Zahid, expressing his dissatisfaction and disappointment of the political cooperation between UMNO and the Malaysian United Indigenous Party (BERSATU) in collaborating a failed government.