KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 19 (NNN-Bernama) — Malaysian king the Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah today held an audience with 114 members of the Dewan Rakyat (Parliament Lower House) who had nominated Ismail Sabri Yaakob for the prime minister’s post.
Ismail Sabri from the Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition is said to have received enough nominations to edge the other contender for the post, Anwar Ibrahim of Pakatan Harapan (PH).
On Tuesday (Aug 17), all 220 Dewan Rakyat lawmakers were instructed to submit their statutory declarations to nominate their prime minister candidate to Istana Negara (National Palace) by 4 pm Wednesday (Aug 18).
The audience before Al-Sultan Abdullah today is to verify the statutory declarations (SD) of Members of Parliament stating support for their prime minister candidate nominee to replace Muhyiddin Yassin who resigned on Monday as he no longer commanded the majority in the assembly.
His Majesty wanted to determine if the SDs were done voluntarily or otherwise.
The new prime minister to be appointed still has to seek a vote of confidence as soon as possible to determine his legitimacy and majority support in the Dewan Rakyat as decreed by Al-Sultan Abdullah on Tuesday.
Muhyiddin, who led the PN coalition, was sworn in as the country’s eighth prime minister on March 1, 2020 following the resignation of then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad on Feb 24 that ended the rule of PH.
However, things came to a head for Muhyiddin’s fragile coalition recently after UMNO, one of the key partners of PN, withdrew its support for him and PN, leaving the coalition without a clear majority.
Al-Sultan Abdullah accepted Muhyiddin’s resignation as prime minister and that of the entire Cabinet on Monday. His Majesty also consented to appoint Muhyiddin to serve as a caretaker prime minister pending the appointment of a new prime minister.
