I am ‘anak jantan’, bring it on: Azmin dares rivals to vie for Gombak seat

KUALA LUMPUR – Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali has dared political rivals to challenge him in his Gombak constituency. 

While he did not mention any names, the Bersatu supreme council member said he is prepared to face anybody in the federal constituency that he has won three consecutive times since 2008 while standing on a PKR ticket.

“Gombak is open, I am an ‘anak jantan’, bring it on. You can send your wife, you can send your (children), but if you dare, send yourself,” he said during the launch of the Selangor Bersatu election machinery today, drawing laughter from the crowd. 

“Do you even know who I’m referring to? I don’t want to say any names. The way I see it, he’s no longer relevant,” said Azmin, who is also international trade and industry minister.

His comment comes days after PKR president Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim announced his intention of contesting in a parliamentary seat currently held by Pakatan Harapan (PH) “traitors”. 

Anwar’s wife, Datuk Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, and daughter, Nurul Izzah Anwar, are also in politics and are members of Parliament. 

The “traitor” label used by Anwar is in reference to a group of MPs that included Azmin, who quit Pakatan Harapan in February 2020 as part of the infamous Sheraton Move to form the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government under the leadership of Bersatu president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin. Those betrayals led to the fall of PH from federal power.

Addressing delegates at today’s event, Azmin expressed regret at being labelled a traitor and trained his guns back at Anwar, whom he said was responsible for the 2014 political crisis in Selangor that lasted for months. 

“Has the rakyat forgotten the Kajang Move? Who is the father of all traitors?” he asked, again without mentioning names. 

“A lawmaker by the name of CC Lee (Lee Chin Cheh) who entered and won the election democratically, voted as the Kajang assemblyman, was ordered by this greedy human being to resign so he could contest and be the Selangor menteri besar.” 

The Kajang Move was a political manoeuvre aimed at dethroning the then menteri besar Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim after he supposedly defied his party PKR to sign a water deal between the state and the federal government. 

The move saw Lee vacating the Kajang state seat, triggering a by-election that would have seen Anwar contesting, supposedly to enable him to challenge Khalid as the head of the state government. 

However, he was convicted for sodomy, forcing Wan Azizah to stand in his place. Although she won the seat, Azmin was later appointed as the new menteri besar after months of political impasse. 

In his speech today, Azmin took a further jibe at Anwar, saying PH would not have won the 2018 election had the latter stood as the coalition’s prime minister candidate. 

He said this in condemning certain members within the coalition for pressuring former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to set a specific date to hand over power to Anwar. 

“I took a stand at the time that we shouldn’t force Tun. Allow him to lead. When the time comes, we can discuss. There has never been any agreement stating that (Mahathir) can only be prime minister for two years.  

“The only agreement was that after Mahathir, then the other person (Anwar) will take over. It doesn’t matter if it’s two years. Maybe Tun wants to stay for 10, 20 years, up to him. After all, that was the people’s mandate during the election. 

“If we had placed our hope on that person (Anwar) during the election, we wouldn’t have won,” he said. – The Vibes, October 2, 2022