Johari sees no problem with Khairy as PM, but winning Sungai Buloh in GE15 comes first

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 11 — Datuk Seri Johari Abdul Ghani has reportedly advised his fellow Umno lawmaker Khairy Jamaluddin to focus on winning the Sungai Buloh parliamentary seat before talking about his wish to helm the government.

According to Berita Harian, Johari, who hopes to reclaim the Titiwangsa parliamentary seat, said that prime ministerial ambitions took a backseat to winning a majority for Umno-led coalition Barisan Nasional (BN) in Parliament on November 19.

The Umno supreme council member added that winning seats, which were needed to form the government, is a collective effort and required the whole party to move as a team.

Johari said, however, that he doesn’t reject the idea of Khairy becoming the Umno leader should he receive the necessary support.

“If there’s a lot of people supporting Khairy, I don’t see why he can’t (become the prime minister). No problem.

“But we need one team and MPs that have the same view, the same burden, and the same ability to build our nation,” said Johari during his visit to Kampung Datuk Keramat as part of his general election campaign today.

On Tuesday, Khairy told a ceramah he has set his sights on becoming Malaysia’s prime minister, and sees winning the seven-cornered fight for the Sungai Buloh constituency in the 15th general election (GE15) as the first step towards this goal.

“But I think it’s time. I want to say, I think it’s time. I want to say, OK, but not now lah. Now we win, my kakanda Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob will be Malaysia’s prime minister,” he said to loud cheers from the crowd, based on a brief video posted on Twitter by Channel NewsAsia (CNA) reporter Melissa Goh.

Kakanda is an old-fashioned, formal Malay word meaning “older brother”.

Caretaker prime minister Ismail Sabri is the BN’s “poster boy” for this election. Coalition leaders have said that he will return as head of government if BN wins the election.

“I’m 46 years old, still can wait, but not so long lah, yeah. I’m ready! But I have to prove it at Sungai Buloh first.

“If the people of Sungai Buloh support me, I can inform the party’s people, I came to the dragon’s den, 26,000 majority, I won the seat for Barisan Nasional, I want to lead the party and I want to lead the country now,” Khairy said in his speech, and was again met with loud cheers from the audience.

Khairy is contesting the Sungai Buloh seat for the first time on November 19, having previously served as the MP for Rembau in Negri Sembilan for three terms from 2008 to 2018.

In the battle for 158,090 votes, Khairy will be going up against PKR’s deputy information chief Datuk R. Ramanan, Perikatan Nasional’s Mohd Ghazali Md Hamin, Gerakan Tanah Air’s Mohd Akmal Mohd Yusoff, Parti Rakyat Malaysia’s Ahmad Jufliz Faizal, and two independent candidates — Syed Abdul Razak Syed Long Alsagoff and Nurhaslinda Basri otherwise known as Sifu Linda.

In the 14th general election, Sungai Buloh had 90,707 registered voters, with 77,951 of them casting their votes.

In GE14, PKR’s Sivarasa Rasiah won the Sungai Buloh seat against three other contenders, garnering 43,631 votes which represented a majority of 26,634 votes over PAS candidate Nuridah Mohd Salleh who garnered 16,997 votes.

BN’s A. Prakash Rao came in third in that fight with 16,681 votes, while the Parti Sosialis Malaysia candidate Zainurizzaman Moharam garnered 642 votes.