KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 28 — Umno and PAS have thrown their support behind Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) president Tan Sri Muhyidin Yassin to become the eighth prime minister of Malaysia.
PAS secretary-general Datuk Takiyuddin Hassan confirmed this in a joint statement also signed by his Umno counterpart, Tan Sri Annuar Musa.
“Umno (with 39 MPs) and PAS (with 18 MPs), as part of the Muafakat Nasional, have agreed to nominate Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, Pagoh MP, as the eighth prime minister, for the consideration of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.
“This means that all 57 Umno and PAS MPs give their full support to Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin,” the short statement read.
The Yang di-Pertuan Agong had over the past two days personally conducted interviews with MPs in efforts to resolve a political impasse, where no political coalition currently has the simple majority support or at least 112 MPs’ support to be the federal government
In a statement earlier, Pakatan Harapan (PH) asserted that PKR president Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has the most number of MPs supporting his candidacy as the next prime minister.
“The Presidential council believes that PH’s candidate, that is Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, has received the highest number of nominations from among Members of Parliament based on the process determined by the Seri Paduka Baginda Yang di-Pertuan Agong the other day.
“The Presidential Council believes that Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim should be given a chance to have an audience with the Seri Paduka Baginda Yang di-Pertuan Agong to prove the confidence of the majority of Members of Parliament towards him,” it said in a statement this afternoon.
Malaysia is currently facing a political crisis, which was triggered when then-PKR deputy president Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali and vice president Zuraida Kamaruddin were sacked from the party.
They then lead a group of 9 other MPs out of PKR and PH together. Bersatu also announced its pull-out from the PH coalition.
After the Azmin faction and Bersatu left PH, the coalition no longer had the majority support or at least 112 MPs out of the 222-member Dewan Rakyat to remain as the government of the day.
In the political crisis that ensued, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad also quit as prime minister before being installed as the interim prime minister; he had also quit as Bersatu chairman before taking up the party position again yesterday.
No political party or coalition has sufficient numbers now to form a simple majority for federal power.
