Several Umno Perak leaders have warned their higher-ups that the Pakatan Harapan (PH)-Barisan Nasional (BN) tie-up to govern the Silver State will only anger its grassroots members.
Datuk Mohamad Iruan Zulkefli, who is with Umno Lenggong and once served as its Youth leader, voiced his displeasure against Umno president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s move in wanting to strike a deal with PH leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
Both leaders met at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur this morning to discuss a possible unity government between PH and BN.
This comes after the 15th General Election in Malaysia resulted in a hung parliament, with PH securing the most number of parliamentary seats (82), but not enough to form a simple majority of 111, out of the 220 seats contested.
Perikatan Nasional won 73 seats, while BN suffered a humiliating drubbing, securing only 30 seats.
PH and BN in Perak got the ball rolling with their collaboration to govern the state together, with BN’s Datuk Seri Saarani Mohamad (main image) being sworn in as the state’s 15th menteri besar this evening.
“Supporting PH is akin to prostituting Umno members and its supporters,” said Iruan.
Iruan pointed out that BN only won nine of the 59 state seats contested in GE15. Perikatan Nasional won the most seats (26), followed by PH (24).
“The people rejected BN. We lost 50 seats. Yet, Saarani becomes menteri besar,” Iruan added.
He said the cooperation between BN and PH to form a unity government at the federal level had also been rejected by the grassroots.
“This is the act of traitors. The grassroots do not agree (with the cooperation), be it at the state, or national level.
“Go solo … being the opposition is better than being a part of the (state) government,” he added.
