UMNO veteran Shahrir Abdul Samad said that the Deputy Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob has confirmed that the government doesn’t have a majority after his announcement that 31 lawmakers are with the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government.

He said Ismail’s announcement shows that Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin only has 31 out of 42 Barisan Nasional (BN) Members of Parliament that are supporting his administration.

Shahrir said that with the current revelation, PN, which had claimed to have 155 seats, now only has 104.

“In the end, all they have done is publicly confirm that the PN government has 104 MPs at the moment, subject to, of course, others (jumping) over (from the opposition).

“They will need seven more MPs to jump over just to get a simple majority. But what kind of government is it going to be? Can they perform? They can’t because their leader is weak,” he told Free Malaysia Today.

Earlier today, Ismail said the 31 BN MPs standing by Muhyiddin are doing so as individual lawmakers and have not broken ranks with their parties.

“The issue is not our breaking ranks. The issue now is our stand as MPs.

“We abide by this stand and wait for September,” he said, referring to the vote of confidence to test Muhyiddin’s majority that will take place when Parliament convenes next month.

Ismail earlier announced the names of 31 BN lawmakers who have rejected Umno’s order to immediately withdraw support for Muhyiddin and the PN government.

Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi announced on Thursday that a sufficient number of the party’s MPs had retracted their support for Muhyiddin for the government to collapse.

However, he did not specify how many.

BN has 42 MPs in the Dewan Rakyat, which comprises 38 from Umno, two from MCA, and one each from MIC and PBRS. – August 6, 2021.