Nazri confirms meeting with 40 BN MPs, says all support the PN govt

 

There was a meeting involving 40 BN MPs in Parliament last Thursday, Padang Rengas MP Nazri Aziz confirmed, in which all of them had voiced their support for the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government.

However, he added, there were two BN MPs who did not agree with the others and were not present at the meeting. They were Umno president and Bagan Datuk MP Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and Gua Musang MP Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah.

Nazri said even Machang MP Ahmad Jazlan Yaakob, who had previously withdrawn his support for Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin back in January, had decided to back the PN government again.

“I confirm that the meeting between the 40 BN MPs really did take place. 40 BN MPs supported the decision to maintain the PN government including former prime minister Najib Razak, Umno secretary-general Ahmad Maslan and Machang MP Ahmad Jazlan Yaakob.

“Najib definitely supports the PN government. However, he asked Muhyiddin to resign as prime minister,” Nazri said, as reported by Astro Awani yesterday.

The Padang Rengas MP also slammed the statement made by BN executive secretary Mohamad Sahfri Ab Aziz, who had said the statement of support from BN issued under Deputy Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s name on Thursday was not true.

Bernama quoted Ismail Sabri as saying the letter was genuine and that the dispute was over the letterhead.

“Who is Sahfri? Is he an MP? How can he speak on behalf of the BN parliamentarians?

“All BN parliamentarians agreed to appoint Ismail Sabri as our chief whip in Parliament. So he has the right to use the BN logo to state something true that did happen.

“Seeing as Umno president Zahid is positive with Covid-19 and is forced to quarantine at home, so Ismail Sabri is the BN parliamentarians’ representative in making an important decision like this.

“It can’t be that without Zahid, no decision can be made? So Sahfri has no right to deny our support,” Nazri said.

He added that he was present at the meeting that took place on Level 3 of the new Parliament building, and that even though three or four BN lawmakers were not present, they had also said they would support any decision made.

On Thursday, a dispute had erupted over the authenticity of a statement which said nearly all BN parliamentarians had voiced support for Muhyiddin to remain as prime minister.

The disputed statement was signed by Ismail Sabri, who claims that he had chaired a meeting involving 40 MPs from the coalition, who unanimously supported the government under Muhyiddin’s leadership.

However, Sahfri had later issued another statement denouncing the purported statement from Ismail Sabri as fake.

For the record, BN has a total of 42 MPs.

This dispute comes amid fresh doubts over Muhyiddin’s grip on power following a rebuke from Istana Negara on Thursday. - Mkini