Wan Saiful said Muhyiddin should have acted immediately once early signs of instability appeared in Perlis, and must now take responsibility for the resulting tensions between Bersatu and PAS.
“Why didn’t Muhyiddin call a PN meeting to decide on the coalition’s candidate for menteri besar? Why did Bersatu send one letter while PAS sent another?” he said in a statement, referring to the separate candidate lists submitted by the parties to the Perlis ruler before the appointment of Abu Bakar Hamzah.
Wan Saiful also said a PN meeting should have been held to address the political crisis as soon as there were signs of turbulence. Muhyiddin’s failure to act had caused serious damage to the coalition, with some quarters now calling for PAS to leave PN and revive Muafakat Nasional, he added.
“Even as of today, Muhyiddin has not called a meeting. It is as if he does not care at all about what is happening,” he said.
Wan Saiful claimed many had recognised Muhyiddin’s weaknesses last year, and that PAS had written to him as far back as December 2024 proposing significant reforms to PN.
However, he said calls for PAS to leave PN were misguided and ran counter to the goal of Muslim unity. “It would be awkward to talk about unity of the ummah, but choose a path that breaks the coalition,” he said.
Wan Saiful, who was sacked by Bersatu in October last year, said PN’s remaining component parties, including Gerakan, should allow PAS to chair the coalition.
Although acknowledging that this might raise concern among non-Malay components, he maintained that the issues could be managed. “We must remember that PAS is not a party of children. They know what needs to be done,” he said.
Muhyiddin triggered crisis, says source
Separately, a Bersatu insider blamed the current crisis in PN on Muhyiddin’s move to propose menteri besar candidates to the Perlis ruler without consulting either the PN Supreme Council or Bersatu’s political bureau.
Familiar with internal party deliberations, the source said the five Bersatu assemblymen who signed statutory declarations (SDs) withdrawing their support for former menteri besar Shukri Ramli had done so with the blessing of the top leadership.
“What’s worse is that PAS holds more seats in the state assembly but was never consulted. This decision has only widened the rift between Bersatu and PAS,” the source added.
The source said Shukri had reportedly fallen out with the palace, setting the stage for Bersatu to step in. However, he criticised the move as “short-sighted” and potentially damaging to PN’s unity.
On Saturday, Muhyiddin denied that Bersatu had instructed its five assemblymen in Perlis to withdraw their support for PAS’s Shukri as menteri besar, and only submitted the names of its candidates for the post after being instructed to do so by the Perlis ruler’s office.
However, a source was previously quoted as saying that Bersatu was behind the plot to oust Shukri in a bid to install its own menteri besar.
Bersatu was reported to have submitted Abu Bakar’s name as a candidate for the post, together with that of two other assemblymen: Megat Hashirat Hassan (Pauh) and Izizam Ibrahim (Titi Tinggi).
Abu Bakar was sworn in yesterday as the new menteri besar, replacing Shukri, who resigned last Thursday citing health reasons. The resignation came shortly after eight PN assemblymen reportedly submitted SDs to the ruler withdrawing their support for Shukri.