Umno man questions timing of Shamsul’s election remarks

Puad Zarkashi says the prime minister’s aide should have lodged a police report instead.

(FMT) – An Umno Supreme Council member has questioned the timing of Shamsul Iskandar Akin’s disclosure of what transpired in the four-cornered fight for Bagan Datuk in the last general election.

“What’s the motive behind bringing up this nonsensical story now? It’s better to lodge a police report,” Puad Zarkashi said in a Facebook post.

Puad also said it was no loss to Umno if Shamsul, who is Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s political secretary, had lodged a police report, as the Bagan Datuk parliamentary seat was undeniably the party’s.

“But now, the prime minister’s image is tainted,” he said.

On Monday, Shamsul revealed that he had decided against calling for a recount of the votes in Bagan Datuk in the last general election (GE15) on the orders of Anwar, the PKR president.

He was one of the three challengers to Ahmad Zahid Hamidi for the parliamentary seat and had lost by only 348 votes, with 800 spoilt votes, in the first count.

But he was persuaded in a 2.30am phone call from Anwar not to proceed as he was told that Barisan Nasional had agreed to join forces with Pakatan Harapan to form the unity government.

The elections resulted in a hung Parliament as no single party among PH, BN and Perikatan Nasional obtained the simple majority of 112 seats needed to form a government.

Puad said there was no guarantee that Shamsul would have won if a recount had been carried out, noting that recounts for other seats, which had smaller majorities, did not change their outcome.

 

‘Anwar should wade in’

Puad also questioned why Anwar was still keeping mum over Shamsul’s claim, which he said suggested that the prime minister gave his tacit approval for Shamsul to make the claim and for unity government components to criticise one another.

Shamsul’s claim led to several Umno leaders taking the former deputy minister to task. PKR secretary-general Fuziah Salleh had also described his disclosure as inappropriate.

In an FMT report yesterday, National Council of Professors fellow Azmi Hassan advised Shamsul to be mindful when issuing statements as it could create the impression that Anwar had given him the go-ahead to reveal what had taken place behind the scenes, and this had upset the ties between PH and BN.