“It was just a small misunderstanding which the leadership has since cleared up,” Marzuki told The Star.

He said people were still interested in signing up with the four-month-old PPBM, and the alleged scandal would not affect the party’s development and recruitment drive.

Anina, who is one of the party’s founding members, was alleged to have been involved in a sexting scandal with an unnamed man, an allegation that she had vehemently denied.

It was later reported that she had been stripped of her party post as the women’s wing chief after screenshots of an intimate WhatsApp conversation between her and the man surfaced online.

Anina first shot to fame after her scathing speech against Umno president Najib Razak at a Langkawi Umno meeting last year. This followed a revelation that Najib received some RM2.6 billion in his private bank accounts. Anina was subsequently sacked by Umno in September last year.

She then helped in the setting up of PPBM and is a supreme council member in the new party.