Opposition walkout: Umno not taking action against KJ

The party's secretary-general Annuar Musa says Umno practises an 'open policy'.

Umno secretary-general Annuar Musa says the opposition left the Dewan Rakyat to speak to the media.

PETALING JAYA: Umno will not take any action against its former youth chief and Rembau MP Khairy Jamaluddin for not joining a walkout staged by his fellow opposition MPs at the Dewan Rakyat this morning, says the party’s secretary-general Annuar Musa.

According to a NST Online report, Annuar said in Kuala Lumpur that this was because Umno practised an “open policy”.

He also said that Umno did not decide to walkout or boycott proceedings today, and only left the Dewan Rakyat to speak to the media.

Annuar also said that it was possible that Khairy did not follow his colleagues because he was not aware of what had been decided as he did not attend a party meeting yesterday where Umno had discussed how it would respond to the Dewan Rakyat speaker issue.

“We respect his view, which is his personal one. Our view is based on consensus and involves all component parties (of BN),” Annuar was quoted as saying.

Earlier today, it was reported that opposition MPs from BN and PAS walked out of the Dewan Rakyat in protest over the new speaker, former Court of Appeal judge Mohamad Ariff Md Yusof.

They said they were dissatisfied with the choice of candidate as it did not follow the standing orders.

Only Khairy and Kimanis MP Anifah Aman remained in the Dewan Rakyat.

Ariff, who was sworn in this morning, was appointed as the new speaker following his proposal by Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, which was supported by Deputy Prime Minister Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail. -FMT