Johor polls necessary due to ‘untenable’ situation in assembly: Nur Jazlan

[superadmin]

KUALA LUMPUR – Staving off claims that the imminent Johor election was a route to force a general election (GE15), one of Johor Umno’s prominent voices, Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed, reiterated that the previous political arrangement in Johor had become “untenable” and that political “stability” was crucial to inducing economic recovery and bringing Johor out of the pandemic.

“It was just that it was untenable, in a situation of 28 versus 28, to have the state speaker deciding on important government policy. Because it arrived at a stage where it was his vote in the state assembly that would determine things.”

In an expansive exclusive interview with The Vibes, former deputy home minister Nur Jazlan dwelled on the present national political “malaise”, stressing that the previous political “experiment” of 2018 had “failed” and that elements of sobriety and realism in setting the future course of the nation post-pandemic was essential.

“Now is the time to be sober, not a time to experiment: the experiment has been done, it has failed, and the experiment has cost money.”

Nur Jazlan is emphatic that the opposition’s claim – principally those of former prime ministers Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin – that the Johor polls were engineered by the “court cluster” is an attempt to “confuse the people,” and he stands by his support of former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s presence on the Johor campaign trail as “what the people want”.

“I simply follow the people,” Nur Jazlan said.

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