THE Pakatan Harapan government collapsed just after 22 months because it had failed to carry out the people’s wishes, Minister for International Trade and Industry Mohamed Azmin Ali said today.

The Bersatu vice president, who was instrumental in the administration’s downfall, said ministers were also losing confidence in the civil service.

Azmin, who was also a minister in that government, gave an example of how eight ministers urged then-prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad to change the chief secretaries in their respective ministries.

“This had not happened before, and Dr Mahathir did not agree with his ministers.

“Why does a new government mandated by the people want to fight with the civil service when it is not involved in politics. 

“They are in their respective ministries to implement the policies that have been decided by the government,” he said in an interview on Astro Awani, last night. 

However, Azmin did not name the ministers in question. 

He said the PH administration also failed to meet the aspirations of the people when many development provisions were “erased and eliminated”, causing some people to feel depressed. 

“Similarly, harsh and exaggerated statements caused the people to feel that they no longer sit harmoniously under PH,” he said. 

Azmin is viewed as the architect of the Sheraton Move in February 2022 when he and a group of 11 other lawmakers defected from PKR to back a Malay-dominated government formed by Bersatu, Umno and PAS.

He joined Bersatu and continued to serve as a senior minister in the cabinet, which was formed by the new Perikatan National coalition. He also kept his job in Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s administration.

In the same interview, Azmin also denied that he was a traitor, a label given to him by his former colleagues in PH. 

Without naming opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, Azmin hinted that his former leader was guilty of similar political manoeuvring.

“Why don’t we focus on the Kajang move and the Port Dickson move? Those were absolute betrayals where the elected representatives were still alive, still serving, elected by the people, but because of someone’s greed, these representatives were forced to resign.

“Is this not a betrayal?” he said. 

The Kajang Move was supposed to engineer Anwar’s re-entry into politics, ostensibly as Selangor menteri besar, but failed when the Court of Appeal convicted him of sodomy.

The result would be Azmin becoming menteri besar for the state.

In Port Dickson, MP Danyal Balagopal Abdullah was rumoured to have been ordered by Anwar to step down shortly after winning his seat in the 2018 general election.

Anwar stood as the PH candidate in the ensuing by-election, winning comfortably. – October 26, 2022.