THE Pakatan Harapan leadership council will discuss the succession of the prime minister next Friday, said Anwar Ibrahim.

The PKR president said he stood firm by the agreement that he would replace Dr Mahathir Mohamad as prime minister.

Anwar said he had met Dr Mahathir in Putrajaya today to discuss the handover.

“I raised the matter because there is an attempt by PAS, a group within Umno and a smaller part of PKR to gather signatures in support of Dr Mahathir being the prime minister for the full term.

“The prime minister is not involved in this attempt and in fact repeated that he would be handing over power as promised.

“I am keen for him to lead the nation until the Apec 2020 meeting in November.

“But this has to be finalised by the PH leadership council which will meet on February 21,” he said in a statement.

The Port Dickson MP also said he told Dr Mahathir that the PH leadership and other parties would hold firm to the PH handover agreement dated January 7, 2018, despite plans to thwart it.

Under the PH agreement, it was agreed that Dr Mahathir would be the prime minister before handing over the post to Anwar. 

While no deadline has been mentioned, it was often stated that the handover will take place two years after GE14.

More recently, Dr Mahathir had said he would step down after the Apec summit in November this year.

In the meantime, PAS has said that it would move a confidence motion to support Dr Mahathir as prime minister.

Earlier this week, news reports emerged that there was an attempt to get MPs to sign statutory declarations in support of Dr Mahathir.

Dr Mahathir himself made things murkier by saying that a prime minister is determined by the number of supporters he has in the Dewan Rakyat. – February 13, 2020.