PM won’t take up post in line with PH manifesto

KUALA LUMPUR: Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad agrees that he cannot be both prime minister and education minister at the same time as that would clash with Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) election manifesto.

However, he said he could assume the post if there was demand for him to do so.

Dr Mahathir affirmed that he wanted the education portfolio. He said he would have not announced it if he did not want it.

“That is the position of the (PH) manifesto.

“I cannot break it unless, of course, there is demand that I should take up the education portfolio,” he said in an interview uploaded on the Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM) Facebook page.

Asked whether he could pass the position to his deputy, Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, he said it was not possible as she had been given a ministry.

However, he said the deputy prime minister was not subjected to the same restrictions that he, the prime minister, was. He said in his previous tenure, it was customary for the prime minister and deputy prime minister to be in charge of the Defence and Home Ministries.

“That’s why you see the prime minister taking the Defence Ministry and the deputy prime minister taking the Home Ministry. Sometimes, we (also) change. But, now it’s different.

“Defence goes to Mat Sabu (president of Parti Amanah Negara) and Home goes to (Tan Sri) Muhyiddin (Yassin) (president of PPBM).”

One of the key pledges in PH’s Buku Harapan manifesto, found on page 38 under the section “Pillar 2: Institutional and Political Reform”, and listed under “Promise 12: Limit the prime minister’s term of office and restructure the Prime Minister’s Department”, is: “The prime minister will not simultaneously hold other ministerial posts, especially the finance minister.”