DAIM Zainuddin has rubbished talk that he is attempting to stop Anwar Ibrahim from becoming the next prime minister, reported the South China Morning Post.

In an interview with SCMP’s This Week in Asia, the government adviser bluntly denied that he was out to disrupt Pakatan Harapan’s plan to have the PKR president-elect take over from Dr Mahathir Mohamad, saying he enjoyed a good working relationship with Anwar.

“Succession was smooth from Barisan Nasional to PH… so why not within the same party? Why should I stop it? What powers have I got?” he was quoted as saying.

“I don’t know where they got the idea that I don’t want (Anwar). Who am I? I am more than 80 years old… I don’t have any party. You are telling me the cabinet is going to listen (to me)?

“I don’t know how people even entertain this kind of thing.”

Daim is chairman of the Council of Eminent Persons (CEP), which was formed following PH’s 14th general election victory. The opposition has slammed CEP for purportedly wielding too much power, and Daim has been accused of having more influence over the prime minister than his own cabinet members.

The council last month submitted its report to Dr Mahathir on issues it had been tasked to look into, including the 1Malaysia Development Bhd scandal.

Dr Mahathir previously said even though CEP’s initial tasks were completed, he wanted Daim to continue in an advisory role.

Daim said it made no sense to accuse him of building a power base outside of the cabinet, as the prime minister never accorded him executive powers.

“He (Dr Mahathir) wanted to know about what went on after he retired in 2003, to do planning for the future… so we (CEP) were tasked to do the research, gather the facts.

“We act solely as an advisory body… the government makes the decisions, not the council.”

He said his current role was similar to the one he played when Dr Mahathir, during his first tenure as prime minister, sought his expertise during the 1990s Asian financial crisis.

Daim was made the head of a special task force, and later, appointed as finance minister for a second time after Dr Mahathir sacked Anwar from the post.

In 2016, Anwar, during his second stint in jail on a sodomy charge, wrote a letter in which he called Dr Mahathir and Daim “the architects and aggressive exponents of crony capitalism”.

However, he has put the past behind him, and now works with his former foes.

Daim said he met Anwar six times while the latter was behind bars, as well as after his release. – September 1, 2018.