SHAH ALAM, 9 July: The Selangor Chief Minister’s Political Secretary (Setpol), Azman Bidin, was informed by the Parti Keadilan Rakyat de facto leader that Pakatan Rakyat (PR) never held discussions to replace the Chief Minister, Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim.

This was personally announced by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to Azman at a meeting yesterday.

“Until now, the President’s Council of the three parties has not issued a statement, so that is all untrue. I just met with Datuk Seri Anwar and he informed that there have been no discussions to replace the Chief Minister because this discussion has to be done with the top leadership of PR.

“So, there is clearly no issue of resigning, either after Raya or this September,” he said when contacted by Selangor Kini today.

He said that the announcement of a change in the Chief Minister can only be made by the PR President’s Council and Anwar’s statement is in line with what was recently said by the PAS President, Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang.

“The move to issue statements like this is to use the media to pressure and weaken the support of PKR members at the remaining branches which will hold re-elections.

“They do not have the power, but they use the media to exert pressure,” he said.

Azman said this when commenting on the report at the Astro Awani website which quoted an unnamed source saying the Abdul Khalid will resign after Hari Raya Aidilfitri or latest in September.

The source said that the decision will be taking into consideration programmes that Abdul Khalid has to attend throughout the Ramadan and the Shawwal.

Apart from that, the source also said that the change will be done smoothly without any problems.

NS