PKR deputy president Mohamed Azmin Ali had plans to form a new party at the height of the fallout from a sex video implicating him, said Syed Husin Ali.
The PKR founding member told Malaysiakini that he had “personal knowledge” about Azmin’s plan.
This was when the discord between Azmin and PKR president Anwar Ibrahim reached its peak over the sex video, which the party No. 2 has denied being in.
The clip, showing two men in bed, emerged in June. Former Santubong PKR Youth chief Haziq Abdullah Abdul Aziz had confessed to being one of the individuals caught on film and named Azmin as the other.
Azmin, meanwhile, has called the allegation an attempt at destroying his political career.
Syed Husin said Azmin had thought about joining Bersatu, but members of his faction in PKR were concerned that the non-Malays among them would have no place in the Malay party led by Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
A second option had been to join former Barisan Nasional component Gerakan, and moves were made towards this end. However, the plan was also rejected by Azmin’s faction.
Following the two failures, said Syed Husin, Azmin began thinking about setting up a new party.
“The third thing they tried to do was form a new party. At one stage, he (Azmin) was serious about it.
“Many of us were saying if they formed a new party, that would be the end, the death of his gang.”
Malaysiakini reached out to Azmin loyalist and PKR vice-president Zuraida Kamaruddin, who denied there being any plan to establish a new political outfit.
She said the matter was never discussed, and that the Azmin faction will remain in PKR to strengthen the party.
Azmin and Anwar’s public sparring began as the sex video was released in instalments in chat groups to which journalists and politicians were added.
At one point, Anwar told Azmin, who is also economic affairs minister, to resign if he was indeed in the video, to which the latter said the party president should “look in the mirror” – a hint at Anwar’s previous sodomy charge.
The PKR No. 2 had also said he knew the identity of the “mastermind” behind the sex clip around the time police said their probe found that a leader of a political party was behind it.
Police’s last statement on the matter was that a forensic analysis had shown that the video was most likely authentic, but could not conclusively identify the men in it, and that they were studying the findings of a UK-based firm that was independently engaged by Umno man Lokman Noor Adam to look into the clip.
Syed Husin added that Azmin and his faction had “planned to provoke the party to sack them” by deliberately skipping leadership meetings.
Their absence from central committee and political bureau meetings had become an issue, drawing public reminders from Anwar and secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution Ismail to attend.
“They would want to be sacked (but why would we do that?)… Now, it is almost a Catch-22 situation as they are not sacked,” said Syed Husin.
He said Anwar had moved to show his strength by organising a PKR retreat in Port Dickson, where the majority of division leaders declared their support for the president.
Syed Husin said he believes Azmin and Zuraida now “belong to the small minority” in the party. – TMI