KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 10 — Barisan Nasional’s (BN) Sungai Buloh candidate Khairy Jamaluddin admitted he asked to contest in the constituency, but said he “had no choice” as the coalition’s leadership left him in the dark after asking him to vacate his seat in Rembau.
He said he had to take matters into his own hands, and selected Sungai Buloh from the small list of seats remaining.
“The reality is, I had no choice. The party’s leadership did not indicate which area I would be fielded in. I was left just like that.
“I only know that I have to leave Rembau, so at that time I had no choice. I had to do something on my own so I met with Noh Omar and Vicky,” he said, referring to Selangor BN chairman Tan Sri Noh Omar and MIC president Tan Sri S. Vigneswaran.
“When there were not many seats available, only two or three left, I said, ‘OK, I choose Sungai Buloh’,” Khairy said, adding that there were no discussions with the coalition’s top leadership on his next steps.
“Other seats were slowly being taken up and the nomination date was getting closer, so I had to take the initiative to do something for myself,” he said.
He revealed that Noh Omar, who himself was dropped from contesting in Tanjong Karang, was the one who suggested that Khairy contest in Selangor.
“We spoke to the MIC president and asked to swap for Sungai Buloh, because this seat was previously contested by MIC.
“So, yeah, to some extent, I requested it. But I had to arrange it myself to get the seat,” he said.
Despite all that, Khairy said that he did not want to argue publicly or debate the matter through the media.
Yesterday, Umno president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said Khairy had requested to contest the Sungai Buloh seat, when asked to comment about the latter saying he wanted to be Malaysia’s prime minister in the future.
Khairy, who is also the caretaker health minister, left the Rembau parliamentary seat for Umno deputy president Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan to contest.
Khairy is in a seven-cornered fight with Pakatan Harapan’s Datuk R Ramanan, PRM’s Ahmad Jufliz Faiza, PAS’ Mohd Ghazali Md Hamin, Pejuang’s Mohd Akmal Mohd Yusof, and two independent candidates Sifu Linda and Syed Razak Alsagoff.
The Sungai Buloh incumbent is PKR’s R. Sivarasa, who was replaced with Ramanan as PH’s candidate due to health issues.
