'Minister's mooted exit may be linked to Sabah snap polls'

DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang said a senior federal minister purportedly mooting to quit may be linked to a possible Sabah snap election.

This was after Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the senior minister being talked about was Foreign Minister Anifah Aman, but denied he was resigning.

“I believe that Selangor Menteri Besar Azmin Ali was telling the truth when he said that a senior minister had told him that he was resigning over the 1MDB scandal.

“The senior minister could be persuaded not to go through with the resignation,” Lim said in a statement today.

However, Lim said it would require a lot of convincing that the real reason for the mooted resignation was because of 1MDB as the scandal had gone on for a long time.

“I have grave reservations that this would be the case, which means that while the 1MDB scandal is being used as an issue, the real reason for any such resignation would be something else.

“Maybe the news of impending Sabah state general elections would be the real cause of the social media storm,” he said.

Earlier today, Ahmad Zahid did not rule out snap polls in Sabah but said the state leadership but have strong grounds for it.

The talk of snap polls in Sabah came amid former Umno vice-president Shafie Apdal trying to put together a coalition against his former party.

“In fact, there is talk that Sabah state elections is very imminent, and the Sabah state assembly may be dissolved next month and Sabah state general elections held in April.

“The primary reason for separate state general elections from the national polls is to free the state BN from the onus of having to carrying the (Prime Minister) Najib Abdul Razak burden, with all the attendant 1MDB and global kleptocracy issues,” he said.

Lim said it was best for Anifah to break silence and clear the air on the matter. Anifah is a Sabah Umno leader.

“Anifah must surface to clear the air or Sabahans and Malaysians cannot be blamed for concluding that some political power play is taking place among the top echelons of the Umno leadership,” he said.- Mkini