Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) collapse was caused by members of Parliament who jumped parties, not due to Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s resignation as prime minister, said Shah Alam MP Khalid Samad.
“Dr Mahathir’s resignation as prime minister didn’t cause the collapse of Pakatan as he had resigned before in 2003 to hand over to Abdullah Ahmad Badawi,” he said in Dewan Rakyat today.
“After that, Abdullah also resigned for Najib Razak to be prime minister in 2009. Hence, Dr Mahathir’s resignation didn’t cause Pakatan to collapse.
“Pakatan only collapsed after several MPs jumped parties, causing it to lose its majority.”
Khalid, who is Amanah’s communication director, interjected Hanipa Maidin’s (Sepang-PH) speech on the motion of thanks for the royal address.
Since the start of Parliament on Monday, Perikatan Nasional (PN) and PH MPs have been trading barbs on who triggered the collapse of the previous government.
PN lawmakers said Dr Mahathir’s resignation in February allowed Muhyiddin Yassin to become prime minister while PH MPs said it was caused by crossovers.
Prior to its collapse, PH had 139 MPs.
But the 22-month government collapsed on February 24 following a series of events beginning with Dr Mahathir’s resignation.
Barely an hour after his resignation, Muhyiddin unilaterally announced that Bersatu was withdrawing from the PH coaliton. This was followed by senior minister and former PKR deputy president Mohamed Azmin Ali and 10 other MPs resigning from PKR.
Muhyiddin and Azmin’s actions resulted in PH losing 36 MPs, causing the collapse of the PH government. – TMI