Report: Muhyiddin gearing up for snap polls

Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin is gearing up for snap elections by year-end after tabling an "election budget", according to Singapore's Straits Times.

Citing sources, the Singaporean news organisation said Muhyiddin had informed this intention to Bersatu leaders during their meeting on June 4 and division leaders have been briefed.

The report also cited Bersatu supreme council member Wan Saiful Wan Jan confirming that Muhyiddin was preparing the grassroots for an election.

"The PM has been meeting grassroots and has also instructed all party leaders to ramp up election preparation.

"I support the idea of having a general election as soon as possible, once we are safe from the coronavirus situation, as it will end the propaganda over legitimacy and help create a more stable PN government," he said.

The report also claimed that Perikatan Nasional parties have agreed not to contest against each other in the next election and that Umno and Bersatu have formed a technical committee to iron out seat allocations on Sunday (June 7).

"Some strategists in the ruling pact are already projecting that their combined support among Malays will deliver nearly all of the roughly 120 seats where the community forms the majority, putting PN on track to claim a two-thirds supermajority of at least 148 MPs that was last enjoyed by BN prior to the 2008 election," read the report.

Seat negotiations could prove difficult for PN because although Bersatu officially has 32 MPs, only seven had won their seats on a party ticket.

Sixteen of Bersatu's current crop of MPs won their seats on an Umno ticket while another nine won on a PKR ticket.

Conversely, non-PN parties are not in favour of fresh polls as they currently believe they have the numbers to form a new government but are stuck haggling over who gets to be prime minister.

A major sticking point that has been established is whether Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Anwar Ibrahim or someone else gets to lead this new coalition, which is commonly known as "Pakatan Harapan plus". - Mkini