KUALA LUMPUR: Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail has dismissed claims that an opposition member of parliament was intimidated and threatened into supporting the leadership of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
He said the allegations by opposition leader Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainuddin that Kuala Kangsar MP Iskandar Dzulkarnian Abdul Khalid was pressured into supporting Anwar to ensure the unity government regained its two-thirds majority in the Dewan Rakyat were nothing more than "wild accusations".
"We once lost an MP who defected to support (PN chairman Tan Sri) Muhyiddin (Yassin) after facing similar threats made by Hamzah when they were in power.
"I do not think we (the unity government) will resort to doing the same thing. In addition, we already have a comfortable majority in Parliament," he said.
Earlier today, Hamzah claimed that Iskandar Dzulkarnain was threatened and intimidated with corruption allegations if he did not support the government. (hyperlink:
He claimed that on Oct 1, Iskandar Dzulkarnain was brought to meet with a senior officer from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) at a hotel in Damansara and was threatened with corruption charges, if he was unwilling to sign a pre-prepared media statement stating his support for the government.
Hamzah had said that during the recent meeting between Iskandar Dzulkarnain and Muhyiddin, the former appeared distressed due to the intimidation he had suffered.
Yesterday, Iskandar Dzulkarnain had in a statement annouced his decision to support the prime minister's leadership.
He had said the decision was made after examining the continuous complaints of the voters and the urgent need to deal with the rising cost of living faced by his constituents.