Liew claimed the minister was aided by current Home Minister Hamzah Zainudin and Foreign Minister Hishammuddin Hussein in the move to form a new government.

He said the primary objective of the plan was to prevent opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim from becoming prime minister.

“Their plan in October 2019 was to engineer a Malay unity government with the addition of Hishammuddin’s group (17 MPs), Gabungan Parti Sarawak (18) and PAS (18) to bring their numbers to 53 MPs, the exact number needed to replace Amanah (11) and DAP (42),” he said in a blogpost.

“Azmin believed that the moment DAP and Amanah were out of the equation, he would be able to control most of the PKR MPs, or that nobody would back Anwar as prime minister.”

Liew said the first part of the plan was Hishammuddin’s announcement of his idea to build a “Bangsa Malaysia” without the DAP and Amanah, but that the rest of the “coup” failed then as the PH secretariat had exposed their plans just in time.

However, he said PH had failed to avert the Sheraton Move in February when current Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin gave his support for this move and Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi brought over the entire Umno bloc for the coup.

“As the nation continues to be affected by the Sheraton coup, more stories to whitewash the conspiracies would emerge. It is time for us to recognise and document what had actually happened,” Liew added.

Previously, Azmin had claimed that the formation of Perikatan Nasional was Mahathir’s idea to ensure he would remain prime minister with the support of MPs from all parties.

He said Mahathir’s resignation as prime minister had thrown the nation into a political crisis.

Mahathir denied the claims yesterday, alleging that Azmin had planned the Sheraton Move as he aspired to be prime minister himself.