BARISAN Nasional (BN) has suspended a media officer for a month, pending an internal probe, over confusion in BN chairman Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s press statement yesterday.

BN executive secretary Mohamad Sahfri Ab Aziz said in a statement that the officer had made a mistake in Zahid’s statement that was issued after a supreme council meeting yesterday.

In the statement, Zahid had said the BN was appealing to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah to call for the parliamentary session to be held immediately.

He also said BN also recommended its representatives in the Dewan Rakyat to call on the prime minister and the cabinet to respect His Majesty’s view that the Parliament session should be held, especially as the rules under the MCO have been relaxed.

Leaders of other BN component parties who were also at the meeting, however, disputed the matter.

MIC president S.A. Vigneswaran was reported as saying that the BN meeting did not support any move to appeal to the King to call for the Parliament sitting immediately.

MCA president Wee Ka Siong confirmed Vigneswaran’s remarks.

PBRS deputy president Arthur Joseph Kurup likewise said the BN supreme council did not agree to that.

Mohamad Sahfri also said today that the version of Zahid’s statement issued to the media yesterday was not approved by the secretariat.

Apart from the confusion on the appeal to the Agong, many social media users have also pointed out that parts of Zahid’s statement was also almost identical to a separate statement issued by Pakatan Harapan (PH) at about the same time.

PH had also called on the Agong to call for a Parliament sitting urgently. – March 5, 2021.