KUALA LUMPUR, April 5 — Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin today insisted his party’s six federal lawmakers who declared support for the government must vacate their seats.

He said the party’s amended constitution effectively closed the loophole for them to remain elected lawmakers despite crossing the political aisle to back Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s administration.

"When the individual is no longer recognised as the party member then the seats held by them need to be vacated,” he said in a video posted in his Facebook page.

Muhyiddin also said that the party will take necessary action on those six MPs after the Hari Raya celebrations.

"At this moment, they can have a lot of interpretation on the latest amendment on whether they are affected or not, or they might not understand, or they simply find reasons that could ease them in this matter.

"But we have taken all these matters into account before we amended the party constitution.

"We have our legal team who have reviewed all possible actions that can be taken against them based on our party’s constitution and as well as the reference from Federal Constitution and the anti-party hopping law.

"This is a fasting month and they can celebrate Hari Raya first. We will take necessary action based on the amended party constitution after that,” he said.

The six Bersatu MPs were Bukit Gantang MP Datuk Syed Abu Hussain Hafiz Syed Abdul Fasal, Tanjong Karang MP Datuk Zulkaperi Hanafi, Jeli MP Zahari Ketchikan, Kuala Kangsar MP Datuk Iskandar Dzulkarnain Abdul Khalid, Labuan MP Datuk Suhaili Abdul Rahman and Gua Musang MP Mohd Azizi Abu Naim.

Muhyiddin also said that similar action will be taken against Selat Klang assemblyman Abdul Rashid Asari who declared support to the Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Amirudin Shari’s administration.

Muhyiddin also thanked the Registrar of Societies (RoS) for approving the party constitutional amendments on Tuesday.