He said Tengku Sariffuddin had made statements which had depicted him as a power-hungry person who only wanted to become PM regardless of the cost to the people, and that he was willing to work with his father Dr Mahathir Mohamad and former deputy prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin to topple the government so he could take over the country’s number one post.

Mukhriz said he was never involved in any conspiracy to topple Najib and push for Muhyiddin to become PM on the condition he would be Muhyiddin’s successor.

On Tengku Sariffuddin’s claim that it was the intention of Mahathir to push Mukhriz up the leadership ladder, Mukhriz said if his father had really wanted to do so he could have done it when he was prime minister for 22 years. It was illogical to wait for 13 years after retiring as prime minister to do so, he said.

On the claim that he had contested the post of Umno vice-president to fulfil his ambition of becoming party president and prime minister, Mukhriz said the process from vice-president to president was not easy and automatic, and there was no guarantee that the Umno president would automatically become prime minister.

He said the allegations against him by Najib’s “officers and followers” were simply to “distract the people from the scandals in which Najib is implicated, such as the 1MDB and SRC International scandals, and the RM 2.6 billion donation into his personal accounts”. He said the people could not be duped.

Mukhriz filed the suit against Tengku Sariffuddin at the Kuala Lumpur High Court civil registry today.