KUALA LUMPUR, March 8 — Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Mansor is officially Barisan Nasional (BN) secretary-general again, with the coalition’s acting chairman saying his tenure is considered unbroken.
Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan said this was because Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz’s announced selection for the role had breached BN’s requirements for this to be agreed universally by all components.
“Tengku Adnan is still the secretary-general because he has never resigned.
“He has agreed to stay on as the secretary-general until a date is reached when he resigns or is terminated,” the acting Umno president told a press conference after the BN supreme council meeting, here, today.
Umno, MCA and MIC are all that remain of the 13-member coalition. The latter two had disputed Nazri as the secretary-general, saying it could not have been official as no supreme council meeting was held to discuss the matter.
“Not to say it is invalid, but it was not formalised by the party. In BN, it has to be brought to the meeting, proposed and approved by the party,” said Mohamad, when asked about the validity of Nazri’s position.
On Tuesday, Nazri’s position in the party was questioned when both MCA and MIC had claimed that his appointment was unilaterally announced by then BN chairman Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi at the opening of MIC’s annual general meeting in October 2018.
The two component parties said Nazri’s appointment was never discussed, nor received official acknowledgement in the BN supreme council.
Nazri was also told to not attend the scheduled meeting held earlier, as he was deemed “unqualified”.
The spat between the two component parties and Nazri came after MCA and MIC lamented that the Padang Rengas MP had repeatedly uttered racial remarks perceived to be from Umno, and the Malay nationalist party’s continued silence had cracked the foundation of mutual respect in the coalition.
