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Anwar’s plot to oust Malaysia PM Muhyiddin: Mahathir doubts it, Najib mocks it
- Nonagenarian pours cold water on Anwar Ibrahim’s claim he has support from enough MPs to form a new government
- Mahathir says while Muhyiddin may fall, Anwar can’t rely on new-found friends in Umno. Najib, meanwhile, posts Facebook photos of Super Rings
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Malaysia’s two-time former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad on Thursday signalled he had little confidence in his on-off ally Anwar Ibrahim’s plan to oust Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin and form a new government, saying he believed the backers of the plot were unreliable.
The remarks by Mahathir, 95, further muddy the waters in what promises to be a fresh political crisis for the country, just months after Muhyiddin, a former ally of both Anwar and Mahathir, split from them to form a new government following internecine struggles among the Malay elite.
Anwar in a shock move on Wednesday revealed he had a strong majority among the country’s 222 MPs that would allow him to form a new government – if granted assent by the king.
He did not reveal who his backers were, but with only 91 MPs in his Pakatan Harapan alliance, multiple media reports suggested he had gained support from some representatives of the United Malays National Organisation (Umno), the decades-old Malay nationalist party that counts disgraced ex-prime minister Najib Razak among its grandees.
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Umno, which governed the country uninterrupted for 61 years until elections in 2018, currently has 39 MPs. These, together with four MPs from allied parties, prop up Muhyiddin’s two-seat legislative majority.
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Anwar needs 21 more MPs to form a simple-majority government of 112 MPs, though he claimed on Wednesday he had the support of “close to” two-thirds of all MPs.
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