SHAH ALAM - Former Umno youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin claims that there are predictions that Umno president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi will become the 11th Prime Minister if the party joins forces with Pakatan Harapan (PH) and dominates the government after the 16th General Election (GE16).
Khairy said according to the projection presented by Umno secretary-general Datuk Dr Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki, the position of Deputy Prime Minister is expected to be held by PH chairman Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who is currently the 10th Prime Minister.
This assumption, he said was based on the possibility that the number of seats won by the BN-PH coalition followed the 1, 1 formula.
"With this formula, the number of GE16 seats assumed by BN-PH using the 1, 1 formula is 182 out of 222 seats.
"And most interestingly, PKR gets 41 seats, DAP 40 seats and Umno 49 seats.
"This means that Zahid will become Prime Minister and PMX (Anwar) will be Deputy Prime Minister," he said in the Keluar Sekejap podcast with former Umno information chief Shahril Hamdan, yesterday.
Khairy also claimed that Umno projected they were expected to win 49 parliamentary seats in GE16, an increase from 26 seats.
He said Umno was also actively conducting tours to soften up the grassroots of the party to accept the narrative that with BN-PH cooperation, Umno can return to the government after GE16.
"One of the tours (by Umno) is currently ongoing, where Asyraf Wajdi is presenting a projection and this projection is in the form of slides and I am looking at these slides.
"He adds the number of additional seats (assumed by BN-PH). So, this assumption means an increase if BN and PH cooperate.
"But he said the additional seats that can be won by the BN-PH combination are 34. I think he is using the 1, 1 formula," Khairy said.