Responding to Najib Razak’s reaction to his claim that Umno was preparing to work with DAP to form a new government, Annuar told his colleagues to “check their diary” for Oct 17.

On Oct 17, a letter was allegedly sent to the King from Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and Najib stating that they and several Umno MPs were retracting their support for Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin.

When the letter started making the rounds on social media, Umno responded, saying that it was fake.

In a Facebook post earlier today, the former prime minister slammed Annuar and maintained that Umno would not work with DAP as the majority of the party’s grassroots leaders had rejected working with the Pakatan Harapan component party.

Najib said just because Annuar had been sacked or disagreed with the grassroots, there was no need to hold a press conference and complicate matters by making all sorts of allegations.

Referring to another similar news report, also quoting Najib on the same matter, Annuar said Najib was not his intended target.

The federal territories minister also hit out at Ahmad Maslan, who succeeded him as the BN secretary-general.

Malaysiakini had earlier reported Ahmad as saying that one of Umno’s key gripes with Perikatan Nasional was the decision to carry on with court cases against the party and its leaders.

Ahmad had said this outweighed the party’s dissatisfaction over positions in the government.

“This should not be […] these cases brought to court were the cruelty from the time of (former prime minister) Dr Mahathir Mohamad, (former attorney-general) Tommy Thomas and (former Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission chief) Latheefa Koya.

“Mahathir is no longer in government, and I don’t know where Thomas and Latheefa have gone but why have these cases continued?” the portal quoted him as saying.

Annuar said Ahmad’s comments confirmed the real reason why Umno was unhappy with PPBM.

“It has nothing to do with policy or the people. Judge for yourself.”