AHMAD Zahid Hamidi had supported previous moves to make PKR president Anwar Ibrahim the prime minister, Pasir Salak MP Tajuddin Abdul Rahman revealed today.

Tajuddin, who is out of favour with the Umno president and was axed as a Supreme Council member last week, said Zahid had been behind efforts to obtain support from MPs for Anwar to be prime minister.

Tajuddin said he was also “forced” to sign a statutory declaration (SD) to that effect after Zahid gave him “a sour face” when he stated his disagreement to the move.

“It is supposed to be ‘no Anwar’, ’no DAP’… but I am a living witness, there were SDs signed in support of Anwar to become the prime minister, and letters were sent to the palace,” he told a press conference today to respond to his removal as Umno Supreme Council member last week. 

“I was urged to do so, but I did not want to. In the end, I signed as well because I was given a sour face.”

The recently appointed ambassador to Indonesia also said Zahid spoke to him four times to lend support to Anwar, before he (Tajuddin) finally signed the SD.

“He has lied to Umno members and the public that it is ‘no Anwar’, ‘no DAP’, the poor Umno members who do whatever they are told because they have to respect the president,” Tajuddin said.

In March, at the Umno general assembly, Zahid said in his policy speech that Umno would never work with Anwar nor with DAP.

In October 2020, while Bersatu president Muhyiddin Yassin was prime minister after the Sheraton Move that ousted Pakatan Harapan from Putrajaya, a letter to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong signed by Zahid and Pekan MP Najib Razak went viral on social media.

Zahid and Najib purportedly informed the king that Anwar had majority support from MPs to be prime minister and that the MPs had withdrawn their support of Muhyiddin.

The letter was denounced as a fake by Umno executive secretary Mohd Sumali Reduan.

Tajuddin today said Umno MPs were made to sign the SDs at Hotel Tamu in Kampung Baru, Kuala Lumpur.

He claimed that others who signed SDs, besides himself, Zahid and Najib, included Padang Rengas MP Nazri Aziz.

He said among those who did not sign the SD were Sembrong MP Hishammuddin Hussein and Rembau MP Khairy Jamaluddin.

Anwar never became prime minister as he ultimately did not gather enough support.

Umno vice-president Ismail Sabri Yaakob succeeded Muhyiddin last August after the latter lost majority support and had to resign.

In April last year, a four-minute audio clip of two voices resembling Zahid and Anwar circulated on the internet. 

The conversation was about the Umno general assembly held that year, where Zahid had also stated “no Anwar, no DAP” to party delegates.

But in the audio clip, the voice resembling Anwar’s praised Zahid for his “performance” at the Umno assembly, where Zahid had also sought the delegates’ approval for Umno to cut ties with Bersatu and Perikatan Nasional.

Zahid subsequently denied such a conversation ever took place while Anwar said there was no issue even if the recording was genuine. – June 27, 2022.