Top banker Nazir Razak denies plans to set up political party

Singapore

MALAYSIA's top banker Nazir Razak has countered a buzz of excitement fanned by a recent online report that he was setting up and backing a new "non-partisan political party" in the country.

"This is not true," he said in a statment, after several Malaysian news outlets picked up a Hong-Kong based news portal's report that he had been "quietly meeting" with business leaders in his office in UK and in Malaysia to form a "well-funded" new party that would reach out to all races.

He said he was in talks to set up a non-government organisation (NGO), "but it remains just an idea at this moment".

It was more his accompanying remarks - deemed unusually candid, even given his outspokenness and more so b…