DR MAHATHIR Mohamad has also quit his post as chairman of Bersatu, an hour after announcing his resignation as Prime Minister.

“The resignation letter was submitted to the Bersatu headquarters today,” said a statement issued by the office of the party chairman.

Dr Mahathir founded Bersatu in 2016 after quitting Umno and formed the Pakatan Harapan alliance with PKR, DAP and Amanah, defeating Barisan Nasional in the 2018 general election.

His resignation as prime minister comes after a weekend of speculation that he would take Bersatu out of PH and seek a new political alignment with other parties.

Bersatu’s president is Muhyiddin Yassin, who earlier today announced that the party has left PH, and that its MPs still support Dr Mahathir as prime minister.

Things had been going Dr Mahathir’s way as the PH presidential council on Friday night agreed to let him decide his own resignation date after November to transfer power to Anwar Ibrahim.

Dr Mahathir chaired a Bersatu supreme council meeting yesterday, but no announcements were made on what it was about. 

His resignation and Muhyiddin’s announcement on Bersatu’s withdrawal from PH were within an hour of each other. Bersatu has 26 MPs in the Dewan Rakyat.

At the same time, PKR has also lost 11 of its MPs, after it sacked deputy president Azmin Ali and vice-president Zuraida Kamaruddin. 

They have since said they will form an independent parliamentary bloc.

With this, PH has 102 MPs, 10 short of the simple majority of 112 needed to form the government. – February 24, 2020.