DESPITE receiving pressure from both the police and the Pahang palace over his claims, Perikatan Nasional (PN) chairman Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has refused to retract or qualify his statement that he already had 115 MP’s supporting him to be the next PM after the conclusion of the 15^th General Election (GE 15).

He instead decided to double down on his claim by insisting that whatever he said about the subject on the campaign trail of the recently concluded Nenggiri by-election was a fact not intended to insult the royal institution or contain any seditious tendency nor violate any national law.

Responding to the Bersatu president’s insistence, UMNO Supreme Council member Datuk Puad Zarkashi retorted: “If this is true as claimed, I challenge Muhyiddin to reveal the names of the MPs that he alleges supported him to be the 10th Prime Minister (PM).”

As we all know, Pakatan Harapan (PH) had 81 seats at the conclusion of GE15 while PN had 74 and GPS (Gabungan Parti Sarawak) had 23.

We also know that at the time, there were 10 Barisan Nasional (BN) MPs who had thrown their support behind Muhyiddin to become PM because UMNO president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi himself is on record for saying so in January 2023.

By Zahid’s own admission, of the 30 MPs that BN had at the conclusion of GE15, 10 MPs - six from UMNO and four from BN component parties - had indeed signed SDs (statutory declarations) in favour of Muhyiddin as PM.

Stating that he had forgiven them for their action, Zahid who is also the BN chairman further instructed the 10 MPs to revoke their SDs backing Muhyiddin.

We also know as a matter of public record that Muhyiddin had also persuaded GPS and GRS (Gabungan Rakyat Sabah) with their 23 and 6 MPs respectively to back Muhyiddin as PM because immediately after the conclusion of GE15, GPS chairman Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg had publicly announced that GPS, BN and GR) were backing Muhyiddin .

Adding PN’s, GPS’s, GRS and 10 of BN’s MPs together would have given Muhyiddin 113 seats.

Public record

Muhyiddin claims that he had 115 seats, and although I don’t know where the additional two seats came from - they probably came from the eight seats that were won by minor parties or independent candidates but I will give Muhyiddin the benefit of doubt that he did have the 115 seats that he claims he had.

In any case, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof had confirmed in an interview with Malaysiakini that Muhyiddin had in fact submitted SDs with the names of 115 MPs to Istana Negara.

Either way, the 113 seats that he publicly and officially had is one seat more than the 112 minimum required to form the new government.

If all of the above is a matter of public record to confirm that Muhyiddin did have 113 or 115 MP’s supporting his candidacy as the next PM at the conclusion of GE15, then why is Puad so daringly challenged the Pagoh MP to reveal the names of the MPs from BN that Muhyiddin claimed to have supported his PM candidacy?

Well, I suppose Puad is implying that although Muhyiddin had 115 SDs to support his claim, there are some doubts about the validity of some of his SDs, particularly those that came from the 10 BN MP’s because the decision of the 10 BN MPs was likely not endorsed by the BN’s top brass.

If the 10 BN MPs did support Muhyiddin as the next PM but their party/coalition leaders didn’t, would it mean that their support can be counted as valid?

If the question is asked today, the answer will likely be a yes considering that there is a precedent that has been set by the six rebel Bersatu MPs who have been allowed to support Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim as PM although their action is opposed by Bersatu’s top brass.

‘10 SDs are valid’

But at that time however, the fact that the leadership of BN and UMNO did not support the 10 BN MP’s decision to support Muhyiddin was deemed to have made their support for Muhyiddin invalid which in turn caused Muhyiddin’s request to form the next government to be denied on account of having insufficient numbers.

So, the answer to the question did Muhyiddin have the support of 115 MPs at the conclusion of GE15, is yes.

If so, the answer as to why Muhyiddin could not form the next government is because the validity of 10 of the115 SDs he had was called into question.

This is where things will start to become murkier, complicated, bewildering and fuzzy. The best way to address the question if it is fair to question the validity of the 10 SDs is perhaps depends on who you ask.

I received a mail from Raja Petra Kamarudin (RPK) of Malaysia Today which indicated that he believes that it is fair to question the validity of the 10 SDs.

If you ask me, however, I think that the 10 SDs were valid. Personally, I think even if you ask 100 objective and neutral judges this question, it is likely that 50 will say yay.

All in all, I think that whoever that had to answer this question decisively at the time would have inevitably found themselves put in a “damned if you do, damned if don’t” position. - Aug 20, 2024

Nehru Sathiamoorthy is a roving tutor who loves politics, philosophy and psychology.

https://focusmalaysia.my/did-wannabe-pm-muhyiddin-truly-have-115-seats-at-the-conclusion-of-ge15/