SLAP AGAIN FOR WEAK NAJIB: Sultans never argued with me, it was always ONE NAME in my time - Dr M says it loud & clear

Pakatan Rakyat is not a single entity which is why it has to submit more than one candidate for menteri besar to the state ruler, former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said today.

However, he said he was able to submit only one name for Barisan Nasional as a registered coalition because no one disputed his decision.

"I chose (the menteri besar candidate) based on popular support and no one was unhappy, so it was not necessary to submit more than one name," said Dr Mahathir in response to the ongoing debate over the convention as to the number of names required for submission to the palace.

In the current Selangor menteri besar crisis, opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim had said that BN had always given only one name to the ruler to appoint a menteri besar since 1957.

Dr Mahathir, too, had said it had been the norm while he was prime minister to recommend only one name to the ruler.

Yesterday, however, the Selangor palace issued a second reprimand to PKR over the number of names submitted to replace Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim as menteri besar.

Dr Mahathir said the reason the opposition had to submit more than one name was because of disagreement among their parties.

"This (Pakatan Rakyat) is not single party. This is three parties which disagree with each other. So you must give some room for the ruler to choose between the candidates. In my case, nobody was unhappy with the name suggested as all parties agreed to that one name. The ruler accepted that," Dr Mahathir said in Kuala Lumpur today.

The sultan's private secretary, Datuk Mohamad Munir Bani, said in a statement yesterday that the sultan denied Anwar's claim that it had always been convention to submit only one name for the post since Merdeka.

"Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's statement is inaccurate and confuses the rakyat. What happened during the BN government's administration was that the choices for the Selangor MB post were presented to the Selangor Sultan by the prime minister in a ceremony.

"During the ceremony, the prime minister would present the candidates believed to be qualified, for the sultan's consent.

"From the list of names, the sultan would choose one candidate to be appointed MB," said Munir had said.

Munir said the PKR de facto leader did not have the correct facts and urged him not to release statements that could confuse the public and taint the sultan's image.

Last Tuesday, Anwar sought the sultan's forgiveness for offending him after PKR defied his decree to submit more than two names to the palace.

But Anwar had insisted that his party had acted according to convention and state law in proposing only Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail for the position. –TMI