PUTRAJAYA – Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim denies enticing opposition Members of Parliament to support his administration, stating that he had never even met them prior to their declaration of support for the government.
"When they sought to meet me, I told them to make a decision first (to support the government) before meeting me. Declare first, then only come, and meet me,” said Anwar in his winding-up speech at PKR’s 17th Annual Congress today.
He was referring to the four Parti Pribumi Bersatu MPs, namely, Iskandar Dzulkarnain Abdul Khalid (Kuala Kangsar), Suhaili Abdul Rahman (Labuan), Azizi Abu Naim (Gua Musang) and Zahari Kechik (Jeli).
Anwar claimed the four decided to back his government after witnessing the economic growth brought by his Madani administration.
In his speech, Anwar also denied that he has been denying parliamentary allocations to opposition MPs, stressing that the elected officials in the opposition bloc still receives their allowances.
"We never cut their allowances but as for the allocations for their constituencies, we decided to give it directly to their constituents instead.
"Why would we give allocations to those who mock us? To those who besmirched us? Who are we? Aren’t we the people who challenged Islam? Aren’t we the people who betrayed the Malays?
"You have already appointed a well-known figure as your advisor, go and ask him to raise you the money [that you need],” Anwar jabbed at the opposition, without naming the well-known figure that he mentioned.