Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad yesterday reiterated his promise to step down before his term is up in 2023, to give way to Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to take up the post.
“I have made a promise and I will honour it. In the past, when I said I would resign, the opposition said there was no way I would resign, but I did it,” he said after chairing the Pakatan Harapan (PH) presidential council meeting yesterday.
The issue came to light again after Anwar earlier said he would not be joining the cabinet.
Anwar said he has never volunteered to be a member of the Mahathir Cabinet in the PH government.
The PKR president said he respected the coalition’s consensus decision and will await his turn, in response to Dr Mahathir’s reported remarks that there is currently “no room” in the Cabinet for Anwar.
“Thank you, I’ve never offered myself to be a member of the Cabinet. I am tied to the PH consensus that I should give the full space for PM Tun Mahathir to lead the present Cabinet and the understanding is that I will only assume [office] at the right moment.
“So there is no issue at all whether I would like to be a member of the present administration. I made it very clear. The prime minister is Tun Dr Mahathir and the deputy prime minister is Wan Azizah until I take over,” Anwar said in a news conference that was aired on Facebook.
On Thursday (Aug 29), Dr Mahathir said there was no vacancy for Anwar in the cabinet at the moment as none of the ministers wanted to resign.
Similarly, Anwar’s wife and Deputy Prime Minister Dr Wan Azizah said there was no vacancy for her husband in the cabinet other than Dr Mahathir’s position.
“Well, there are no cabinet vacancies,” she was reported as telling reporters in Cyberjaya yesterday.
“If the prime minister vacates (his post), that is what was promised, yes?” she said when pressed.
Dr Mahathir had always insisted that he would abide by the PH deal to hand over to Anwar. However, no timeline had been ascertained for the handover, causing much confusion as to when this will actually happen.
In the meantime, there had been calls from within Dr Mahathir’s party Bersatu for him to be allowed to complete this term before Anwar takes over after the next general election.