KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 21 — No order was given to any Barisan Nasional (BN) party to persuade any Pakatan Harapan (PH) representative to cross over after the May 9 general election, the ex-chairman of the former ruling coalition said today.

Former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who was also president of Umno, was responding to his successor Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s recent remark that there were last-minute attempts to get PH candidates to switch sides immediately after the elections, which delayed its victory announcement.

"If there were other parties [doing so] then I would not know anything. But certainly on that night there were no orders to that effect,” Najib told reporters at Parliament.

Asked if any PH candidate or representative had offered to collaborate with BN immediately after the polls, the Pekan MP curtly said such matters are not openly discussed.

Rembau MP Khairy Jamaluddin backed Najib’s assertion, saying he was unaware of any order to get PH representatives to cross over.

"I am unsure what the prime minister is referring to or where he obtained the information, but based on what I heard and saw that night this was not the case,” Khairy told reporters at Parliament.

The former BN and Umno Youth chief recounted that he headed straight to Najib’s house following his victory in Rembau, adding that they were joined by Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, Datuk Seri Hishamuddin Hussein and Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor — all of whom were in the previous Cabinet under BN.

"Datuk Seri Najib said the results and our loss must be accepted, and that we had to concede to the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong to nominate the new prime minister.

"If there were any attempts to buy out MPs it would have to come from the top, but it was very clear that there was no such effort or even plan to do so,” Khairy said.

Dr Mahathir was quoted by magazine Mekong Review as saying that there were last-minute efforts to win over Malay-Muslim MPs from PH, which delayed the announcement of its election victory by almost six hours.