Zuraida tells Anwar to self-reflect, drop ‘petty ambition’

A former PKR leader says Anwar Ibrahim should take responsibility for the state of political instability in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, telling her former party boss to do “some self-reflection” and abandon his “petty ambition”.

Zuraida Kamaruddin, the former PKR women’s chief who is now the housing and local government minister, also reminded Anwar of his claim that he had the majority support from MPs to replace Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s government.

“Anwar, who claimed the government lacked transparency, failed to even be transparent to His Majesty on his so-called formidable and convincing majority,” Zuraida said, referring to Anwar’s royal audience last week at which he provided no details of his claim to having the majority support of MPs.

“What he actually did raises serious questions as to his fitness for the high office which he has been so ferociously and single-mindedly pursuing, to the detriment of the people’s welfare.”

Anwar had earlier lashed out at a plan to invoke the Agong’s powers to declare an emergency to suspend the parliamentary process, a move seen as a bid to avert snap polls during the pandemic.

Anwar said any move towards a state of emergency smacked of “dictatorship and authoritarianism”, and claimed that the current government was “lacking legitimacy”.

This morning, MalaysiaNow reported that legal experts in Putrajaya were studying the option of declaring an emergency to prevent a snap election.

This followed repeated appeals by senior health officials during high-level meetings this week, in the wake of a sharp rise in daily Covid-19 infections which have so far claimed more than 200 lives.

MalaysiaNow also revealed that a group of MPs aligned with Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who supported Anwar in his efforts to take control of Putrajaya, could force snap polls if they did not vote to pass the budget to be tabled by Muhyiddin on Nov 6.

In the absence of a clear majority for either bloc, such a scenario would force snap polls, seen as the worst case scenario which could lead to a multifold increase in daily Covid-19 infections.

Zuraida said Anwar’s claim of having majority support was part of a “protracted and frivolous drama”.

“I cannot think of a single instance in which a senior political leader conducted himself in such a manner when his country was faced with an unprecedented health crisis,” she added.