KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA - Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi rejected on Thursday a call by his trade minister to step down before 2010, saying that the timetable had been agreed by his cabinet.

"I'm surprised that a member of my Cabinet should come up with that kind of statement," Abdullah was quoted by the Bernama news agency as saying. "It is against what has been agreed to. I am not staying on for the pleasure of staying on."

Malaysia's trade minister Muhyiddin Yassin said on Wednesday that Abdullah should consider handing over power to his deputy earlier to give the ruling coalition time to prepare for the next elections.

"PM may have to rethink whether the deadline is tenable," Muhyiddin said in Singapore.

Abdullah promised to hand power over to his deputy Najib Razak in June 2010 after Malaysia's opposition won an unprecedented 82 seats in the 222-seat parliament in March general elections.

Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has said he is seeking to win over 30 defectors from the coalition to form a new government by his self-imposed deadline of Sept 16, but has since said he is flexible about the date.

Muhyiddin is a vice president in the United Malays National Organisation , the dominant party in the ruling coalition which has led the country since independence in 1957.

Named international trade minister by Abdullah in March, Muhyiddin has emerged as the highest-ranking UMNO official and the first cabinet minister to call for Abdullah to step down earlier.

Muhyiddin, 63, said this week he has convinced former premier Mahathir Mohamad, who quit UMNO three months ago, to rejoin the party.