KUALA LUMPUR, June 24 — Padang Rengas MP Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Aziz alleged that his decision to withdraw support for the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government was the result of being tricked into doing so by Umno president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

MalaysiaNow reported today that Nazri — an Umno veteran himself — said that Zahid had made a plan with a “group of MPs”, where they would pull their support for PN “one by one”.

“He (Zahid) was the one who planned it. After that he himself did not retract his support.

“He lied. Otherwise why would I want to withdraw my support for no reason? I honestly feel I was tricked,” he was quoted as saying in the report.

Nazri had announced his withdrawal of support for Bersatu’s Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin on January 12, three days after Machang MP Datuk Ahmad Jazlan Yaakub had done the same.

Just hours before Nazri’s announcement, Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri'​ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah proclaimed a state of Emergency in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

MalaysiaNow also quoted Nazri as saying that he had previously voiced support for Pakatan Harapan (PH) chairman Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim in 2018, because he feared that Umno would be blacklisted if the Opposition leader became the prime minister.

However, Nazri reportedly said he is now confident that Umno will not be dissolved and he no longer needs Anwar — as the PH government collapsed last year.

Nazri also reportedly responded to the recent announcement that he was the “mastermind” behind a statutory declaration (SD) supposedly signed by 25 BN MPs.

The SD purportedly states that the signers had lost trust in Zahid’s leadership and instead supported Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein to represent their views.

“I took the initiative because I knew that when the Agong met with party leaders, Zahid and his team would say things that we did not agree with.

“I know him,” he was quoted as saying.

Between June 9 and June 15, the Agong had a series of meetings with 18 prominent political leaders, to discuss the pandemic, Emergency and resulting suspension of Parliament.

The meetings culminated in a special Conference of Rulers meeting on June 16, after which the Rulers decreed that the Emergency need not be extended past August 1 and that Parliament should be reconvened as soon as possible.