This comes after former special functions minister Dr Abdul Latiff Ahmad hit out at Ismail over the remarks, saying there was no need to fire the PN ministers as they could resign on their own.

In response, Ismail said he was just kidding when he made the remark and that Latiff would have been sacked if he was serious.

“Since he’s still in the (caretaker) Cabinet and hasn’t been sacked yet, that means I was just kidding,” he told reporters on the sidelines of an event here.

On Monday, Ismail had said he made a “mistake” of not firing the 12 PN ministers who signed off on the letter to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong. However, the Umno vice-president said he did not do so as he was a “nice and gentle person”.

He also said he had informed the Cabinet twice about his plan to dissolve Parliament.

In response, Latiff said Ismail had “never asked for a mandate” from the Cabinet regarding the dissolution date.

The Bersatu man said the Cabinet would have given Ismail that mandate if he had stated his intention to dissolve Parliament “transparently and sincerely”.

He also claimed Ismail did not directly respond to a senior minister’s query on Oct 7 as to the date of Parliament’s dissolution.

Parliament was dissolved on Oct 10 with the consent of the King.

On Oct 6, it was reported that the 12 PN ministers wrote to the King to express their opposition to dissolving Parliament, stating that the year-end floods and the country’s economic recovery efforts were reasons to hold GE15 next year.

A week later, Ismail said he did not blame the ministers for signing off on the letter as they were just following PN chairman Muhyiddin Yassin’s orders.

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