Anwar Ibrahim has confirmed that there is an effort to collect signatures from federal lawmakers for Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad to serve until the end of his term.
In a media statement this evening, the PKR president said he met with Mahathir in Putrajaya to discuss this matter and the succession issue.
Anwar says Dr Mahathir has denied any involvement in attempts to form a backdoor government.
“The prime minister is not involved with the attempts and even reiterated that he will relinquish the post as promised,” he said.
Anwar said the issue of power transition would be discussed at the Pakatan Harapan (PH) presidential council meeting on Feb 21, adding that he was inclined for Mahathir to remain as prime minister until after the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit.
He also said he had informed Mahathir that several PH leaders would be defending the agreement by the coalition, which was to fully support the prime minister’s leadership and that Anwar would take over from him.
“I also reminded him that for the two years of PH’s age, the agreement that was signed has never been threatened by any of the associated parties — PKR, DAP, Amanah and PPBM.”
Yesterday, Anwar claimed to be in the dark when quizzed on a Sarawak Report article, which alleged that MPs “have been pressured to fly in from all corners to Kuala Lumpur over the last 48 hours” to ink a statutory declaration (SD) in support of Mahathir.
Apart from Umno, PAS and Bersatu lawmakers, the article claimed PKR MPs aligned to Anwar’s estranged deputy Azmin Ali had also inked the document.