No one stays in power forever, Anwar tells MB Khalid

(The Malay Mail) – No leader remains in any position of power forever, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said today in a stark reminder to Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim who just hours ago insisted that he will serve out his Selangor mentri besar term in full.

Anwar, who is de facto chief of both PKR and Pakatan Rakyat (PR), did not divulge further details on rumours of Khalid’s impending removal but said there must always be room for discussion on such matters.

“We cannot say that everyone will stay in their position forever. There must be room for discussion and deliberation,” Anwar told reporters here.

Earlier today, MB rebuffed renewed speculation that he will be made to step down as Selangor mentri besar, reiterating that he will stay on until the end of his term.

Conceding that he is facing pressure from leaders within his own PKR party to step down, Khalid stressed that he will not do so and that he was already “used to the pressure”.

“I think I have stated that I am going to serve until the end of my term, I have to keep my promise to the people of Selangor when I took my oath as mentri besar,” Khalid told reporters at a news conference here.

“I took my oath to manage the state until the next election,” the Port Klang assemblyman asserted.

In response, Anwar said that he has made it clear to Khalid to stop making statements which would give an impression that there was no room for party leaders to give advice or for a change in the state administration.

“The decision (on whether to change the MB) will be made based on a consensus between PKR, DAP and PAS,” the senior leader added.

The Malay Mail Online understands that while some key PAS leaders like Shah Alam MP Khalid Samad want a change in MB, both PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang and PAS secretary-general Datuk Mustafa Ali are in full support of the current Selangor MB and have made that clear last week during a private meeting.

It is also understood that PR has yet to decide on who should be the next Selangor MB.

Some quarters within PR want PKR president Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail to take over, while Selangor PKR leaders are still in favour of deputy president Azmin Ali who is making a renewed bid for the post by lobbying among DAP and PAS.

It is understood, however, that Abdul Hadi had given Khalid a “personal guarantee” that PAS would support him to stay as MB until the end of his term even if DAP or PKR decided otherwise.

Azmin himself has rubbished reports of him winning DAP and PAS’s support to replace Khalid as Selangor mentri besar, saying he was not even present at a closed-door tripartite meeting where the decision was supposedly made.

Both Astro Awani and The Star carried news reports yesterday, quoting an anonymous source as saying that the decision to appoint Azmin as the next MB is awaiting Anwar’s endorsement.

The source had said that Azmin is believed to have been chosen over Wan Azizah as PAS reportedly has issues with her gender.

Khalid’s position as mentri besar has remained contentious since his own party, PKR, initiated the so-called “Kajang Move” to oust him from the position in March.

The move was ostensibly engineered to remove Khalid and to replace him with PKR’s de facto leader Anwar, who had intended to contest the Kajang state seat which was vacated in February.

But the “Kajang move” fell through after the appellate court overturned his sodomy acquittal and sentenced him to five years in jail, days before the by-election’s nomination. Anwar has filed for an appeal against this decision.

Although Anwar’s disqualification had then appeared to put to rest plans to remove Khalid, recent controversies involving the Selangor administration have prompted new agitations for his removal.

Among others, these include the still-unresolved row over the seizure of bibles in the state and Khalid’s perceived partiality towards the developers of the proposed Kinrara-Damansara Expressway that is facing mounting resistance from state residents.

A major barrier to Khalid’s removal was the absence of a clear candidate to replace him, with Azizah previously being touted as the most likely candidate.