Mat Sabu learns to tone down
‘I must follow the rules now that I am a minister’
IPOH: Mohamad Sabu, who is known for his hard-hitting and sometimes witty remarks, admits that he has to tone down now that he is in the government.
The Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah) president said as Defence Minister, there were certain protocols he needed to adhere to.
“Some people asked me when I would ‘fight’ over the Malaysia-Singapore dispute. But it is up to the Foreign Minister to issue statements on this matter.
“I have advisers, so the way I talk is no longer like before,” Mohamad, better known as Mat Sabu, said in his winding-up speech at the party’s national convention here yesterday.
On party matters, Mohamad said Amanah was confident of capturing Kelantan and Terengganu in the next general election.
He said despite people claiming Malays did not support them, there were many applications to join the party.
“For instance, some 700 applications were received from a village in Kelantan recently. There are only some 200 villagers there, but they got all their relatives to become members as well,” he said.
On the party’s stand to accept former Umno members, Mohamad said their applications would be scrutinised “case by case”.
“We must have an open attitude in accepting members. Don’t worry, we have our own mechanism to vet them. They will need to follow the party’s constitution, rules and regulations,” he added.
He also said several former Umno division leaders had shown interest in joining Amanah, but no applications had been received yet.