Jessica Lin
Malaysia’s prime minister-in-waiting Anwar Ibrahm has called out a Financial Times (FT) article in which he supposedly acknowledged that there are “pockets” within the Pakatan Harapan coalition who may try to block his rise to premiership.
In a media conference on Friday (Jan 4), Anwar reportedly called the reporting “fake news”.
“I never said that. No fake news will be entertained,” Anwar was quoted by New Straits Times (NST) as saying.
In the report published by Financial Times (FT) on Wednesday (Jan 2), the leader of the People’s Justice Party (PKR) was alleged to have said that there were people who were not happy with the arrangement for him to take over Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad when the 92-year-old steps down.
According to FT, Anwar said that there were “pockets, people who for their own reasons would like to sabotage these arrangements”.
“I can’t deny, some people in the ruling coalition (have) a different agenda,” FT quoted him as saying.
But at the media conference on Friday, Anwar denied saying that there were people in the party trying to sabotage his rise to power.
“What I said was – we can’t deny there are some elements who may not agree. It’s a democratic process. What is important is that Pakatan Harapan agreed and I and Tun Mahathir have agreed,” Malay Mail quoted him as saying.
Anwar has repeatedly called for the people to allow PM Mahathir to carry out his leadership without the “constraints of time or pressure”.
Just on Wednesday (Jan 2), he tweeted that “Tun M must be given the space to lead the government for the duration that we agreed upon”.
“He has the full support of PH,” Anwar added.
On Friday (Jan 4), The Star reported that veterans group Otai Reformasi said that there are people within PKR who want to stop Anwar from becoming PM.
The group’s chairman, Dr Idris Ahmad, pointed to Facebook postings on the topic, including a recent statement from “a minister”, The Star said.
“We don’t want doubts to be created and will go all out to defend the transition of power,” Dr Idris was quoted as saying.
Source: Business Insider
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