Shahidan: Tough for Mahathir to topple Najib

Dr Mahathir Mohamad will find it difficult to topple Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak even through the 14th general election (GE14), said Umno supreme council member Shahidan Kassim.

He said this was obvious because Najib was the leader of the BN which has 132 seats in the Dewan Rakyat compared to Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM) which has just one.

"To topple Najib through the general election... he has 132 seats and if you want to wrest all that, it is not easy.

"Mahathir's PPBM has only one... so it would be difficult for it to happen,” he said after launching Maran Umno’s Wanita wing’s delegates conference today.

Shahidan, who is also a minister in the prime minister's department, was commenting on media reports of Mahathir’s admission that he had planned to topple Najib since 2014.

He added that it would be difficult to implement the plan as Najib had strong support not just from Umno but also from all BN component parties.

Commenting on the three heads in the leadership of Pakatan Harapan, Shahidan said the party was only playing a game with the people as there was no DAP representative in its top leadership.

Harapan made up of opposition parties PPBM, DAP, PKR and Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah) just released its new leadership which sees Mahathir as the chairperson, jailed former opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim as the de facto leader and Anwar’s wife Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail as president.

DAP, the strongest party in the alliance, was only given a deputy president's post.

In Putrajaya, Umno supreme council member Ab Aziz Kaprawi echoed the same, adding that Mahathir was just using the 1MDB issue as an excuse to “get his way”.

In a statement here, the deputy transport minister said Muhyiddin Yassin who joined Mahathir after being sacked as deputy prime minister and Mahathir’s son Mukhriz, who was dropped as Kedah menteri besar, were all traitors to Umno as they were all insincere in their struggle.

- Bernama