PAKATAN Harapan plans to appeal the Yang di-Pertuan Agong’s decision to name Muhyiddin Yassin as the new prime minister.

Amanah deputy president Salahuddin Ayub said PH intends to do this by using statutory declarations signed in favour of their candidate, Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

“We will prove it using statutory declarations. We intend to appeal. There’s no deadline to appeal but we will try,” Salahuddin told reporters outside the Eastin Hotel in Petaling Jaya.

PKR, DAP and Amanah leaders were holed up at the hotel earlier this morning while their party chiefs went to Istana Negara to inform the Agong that Dr Mahathir is their prime minister candidate.

Salahuddin said all PH leaders are now headed to Dr Mahathir’s Kuala Lumpur office at Yayasan Al-Bukhary, where they are expected to discuss their appeal to the Agong.

Istana Negara said an announcement would be made at 5pm but the press statement announcing Muhyiddin as the eighth prime minister was leaked minutes earlier.

PH, with 95 MPs, had been confident earlier today that Dr Mahathir had the numbers, after he, as well as Bersatu Youth chief Syed Saddiq Abdul Rahman, broke ranks with the party to nominate Muhyiddin. They also denied signing any statutory declaration to support the Bersatu president.

PKR president Anwar Ibrahim was also confident earlier that Dr Mahathir would have the numbers, in anticipation of more Bersatu MPs switching allegiance. SUPP’s Richard Riot had also switched sides to join PKR.

Sabah parties Warisan (9) and Upko (1) had also announced support for Dr Mahathir. 

All this would have brought support for Dr Mahathir to at least 105 MPs.

Muhyiddin’s support, meanwhile, would have stood at 96 MPs from those in Bersatu who did not switch, Umno, PAS and ex-PKR MPs under Mohamed Azmin Ali.

The wild card was Gabungan Parti Sarawak’s (GPS) 18 MPs. 

The party initially said it would only declare its official position tomorrow, but party’s parliamentary whip Fadillah Yusof was at Muhyiddin’s house this morning, and went to the palace with the Bersatu leader’s entourage.

Leaving palace earlier, PAS secretary-general Takiyuddin Hassan had told reporters that the Agong will wanted them to return tomorrow, and a Bersatu source had explained that this was because the Agong wanted to wait for GPS’ official position.

A simple majority of 112 MPs out of 222 in the Dewan Rakyat is needed to form the government. – February 29, 2020.