Kit Siang ties Zahid reaffirming PN support with NFA for PAS minister
UPDATED 12.40PM | Added Amanah's Khalid Samad's comments.
DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang has tied Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi's move to reaffirm his party's support for Perikatan Nasional (PN), with Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Khairuddin Aman Razali being let off the hook for breaking quarantine.
Lim believes that this may not have been a coincidence, and that Umno may have discovered it did not have PAS' full support.
"Maybe the Umno leadership has found, to its shock, that it could find no support from PAS in the game of thrones, and that if the game comes to a crunch, it can neither expect PAS to come on board nor a united Umno parliamentary bloc to blindly support the decision of Zahid and (former premier) Najib Abdul Razak.
"Or will the Byzantine plots, counterplots, sub-plots and counter-sub-plots now only burrow deeper underground?" he said in a statement this morning.
Meanwhile, Amanah communications director Khalid Samad said he assumed something must have happened for Zahid to call the political truce and reaffirm his party's support for PN.
The Shah Alam MP said it was possible that Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin promised to meet some of the conditions put forward by Umno.
However, Khalid speculated that in order to not show that Muhyiddin is submissive to Umno's insistence on a cabinet reshuffle, the matter will not be dealt with immediately.
“Maybe what (Umno) demanded was agreed to. Although there is no cabinet reshuffle at the moment, it is not impossible to do it later because you want to take care of your image.
“Perhaps Muhyiddin wants to show that he did not bow to Umno's insistence, but it will be implemented a month or two later. These are all assumptions we can study.
"But the fact is, Zahid issued a statement (supporting PN) and that indicates that something has changed for them to be willing to agree to a political ceasefire while before that they were pressuring Muhyiddin," he said in an interview with Jom Channel last night.
Previously Umno had threatened to pull its support from PN - amid tensions with Bersatu and speculation that Umno MPs were backing PKR president Anwar Ibrahim's bid to become prime minister.
However, Zahid yesterday announced a “political ceasefire” and said his party will strengthen its cooperation with all PN parties.
Also yesterday, police announced that the Attorney-General's Chambers had decided there will be no further action (NFA) against Khairuddin.
This is reportedly because he was not served a form to undergo mandatory home quarantine after returning from an alleged work trip to Turkey on July 7.
PAS is partners with Umno in the Muafakat Nasional coalition, which it plans to get registered.
However, PAS has also remained in support of PN even when Umno was threatening to back out.
"PAS' stance remains the same, which is to strengthen the Muafakat cooperation between Umno and PAS and also to defend PN," PAS deputy president Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man said last week.
