Azhar ‘dead wrong’, Muhyiddin wanted DAP support to be PM, says Kit Siang

 

Lim Kit Siang asked Azhar Harun if Muhyiddin Yassin was a ‘closet reformist who never came out of the closet’.

PETALING JAYA: DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang has refuted Dewan Rakyat Speaker Azhar Harun’s claim that Muhyiddin Yassin never asked to be prime minister.

“Azhar is dead wrong when he said that Muhyiddin never asked for the job of prime minister.

“I should know because he had asked me for DAP’s support to be prime minister way back in July 2016.

“But I declined to do so as DAP was committed to Anwar Ibrahim as the prime minister candidate,” he said in a statement.

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Lim was commenting on Azhar’s speech at the launch of the book, “Muhyiddin Yassin: Leading a Nation in Unprecedented Crisis” by Abdul Mutalib Razak where he described the eighth prime minister as an “overlooked reformist”.

Azhar had said many chose to overlook this, for whatever reason they may have, adding that he never asked to be the prime minister.

To this, Lim asked if Muhyiddin was a “closet reformer who never came out of the closet”, as he said the Perikatan Nasional chairman would be remembered more for his failures.

He said among them were the Sheraton Move (which stole the people’s mandate in the last general election), his “unconstitutional” declaration of a six-month emergency, among the world’s worst records of handling the Covid-19 pandemic, and having the most bloated Cabinet of 32 ministers, 38 deputy ministers and four special envoys with ministerial rank.

“The exponential increase in Covid-19 cases and deaths after the declaration of emergency in January last year showed that it was the wrong prescription for the pandemic. In fact, it was a gross abuse of executive power,” he said.

However, the Iskandar Puteri MP said that Muhyiddin’s political life, which culminated in him becoming the prime minister who served the shortest term of 17 months, had one saving factor.

“This was his uncompromising position against the 1MDB scandal, for which he was dismissed as deputy prime minister in July 2015 and later sacked from Umno the following year.” - FMT