KUALA LUMPUR, June 24 — Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein’s communications team has denied the legitimacy of a letter that he supposedly sent to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, claiming that he had Barisan Nasional’s (BN) support to be the next prime minister.

In a Twitter post yesterday, the BN treasurer-general’s team wrote that the letter circulated online is “fake and untrue”.

“This is just a political provocation that is meant to be malicious and slanderous to confuse the public,” read the post.

 

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The letter in question was dated June 22 and appeared to have been marked as received by palace officials yesterday.

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It claimed Hishammuddin said that he had the unanimous support of the BN supreme council to be the next prime minister.

It also reportedly contained his proposed Cabinet line-up, with current Minister of International Trade and Industry Datuk Seri Azmin Ali and Senior Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob becoming the first and second deputy prime ministers.

The rest of the allegedly proposed Cabinet members included MPs and senators from Perikatan Nasional and Warisan, as well as Muar MP Syed Saddiq Abdul Rahman.

The letter also reportedly promised to appoint current Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin to Hishammudin’s “advisory council”, alongside former prime ministers Datuk Seri Najib Razak and Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

This comes after Padang Rengas MP Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Aziz claimed yesterday that 25 BN MPs had signed a statutory declaration (SD) saying they had lost faith in Umno president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and were now supporting Hishammuddin instead.

However, Zahid has since rubbished the claims as “fairy tales”.