TOO LATE, TRUE COLORS FOREVER EXPOSED! 'Khalid rejected Umno’s offer to help him stay as MB'

KUALA LUMPUR - Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim declined Umno’s overtures to help him maintain his position as Selangor mentri besar, sources have said.

Umno which dominates Barisan Nasional had invited Khalid to join them at the height of the long-drawn crisis a month ago, according to a source close to Khalid.

“That’s not his style,” an official from Khalid’s office told Malay Mail Online recently.

The source said Umno wanted Khalid because of the former Guthrie Bhd chief executive officer’s “expertise in the corporate world”.

Khalid, expelled from his own party, finally announced his resignation from office on Tuesday. His refusal to step down despite party orders had led to the prolonged leadership struggle in Selangor, undermining Pakatan Rakyat’s administration of the state.

Malay Mail Online understands that Umno had offered to help retain Khalid as MB by working together with political rival PAS, the Islamist party from Pakatan Rakyat (PR).

Umno representatives in Selangor would not comment on the matter.

One source close to Khalid described him as an upright man who strived to run a clean administration as best as he could.

Selangor executive councillor Dr Halimah Ali from PAS, who has served under Khalid for six years, said recently that the incumbent MB held the state’s purse strings tightly.

The Selangor palace said recently that Khalid’s resignation would be postponed until a new MB is appointed.

The palace has also set a September 3 deadline for the three PR parties — PKR, PAS and the DAP — to submit the names of their candidates for the Selangor MB post.

PAS has insisted that it would submit more than one name, defying the latest PR presidential council’s decision to solely nominate PKR president Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail for the job.

PAS secretary-general Datuk Mustafa Ali said earlier today that the party will nominate two assemblymen from PKR for the MB post and none from among its own state lawmakers.

But PKR and DAP said Tuesday that they would stick to nominating just Dr Wan Azizah, despite the Selangor Sultan’s decree that PR parties nominate more than two names each. -Malay Mail