The Perikatan Nasional chairman said he was not prepared to compromise when it came to corruption and abuse of power.

“And that was the reason I was ousted,” he told reporters after an event at Bukit Gambir this evening.

Muhyiddin also said that when he had taken over as prime minister, Najib had already been charged and it was the courts that decided on the Pekan MP’s fate.

“So it has nothing to do with politics, but the law. And that is important.”

Muhyiddin, who recently claimed that both Najib and Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi had sought his help to clear them of corruption charges, was responding to a claim by Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

In an open letter, Mahathir claimed that Muhyiddin had thwarted PH’s success in preventing his predecessor from continuing to “rob” the people after it toppled the Barisan Nasional-led government in the last general election.

This was when Muhyiddin betrayed voters and his colleagues in PH by working with the “court cluster and kleptocrats” just to become prime minister, Mahathir added.

The court cluster refers to a crop of Umno leaders who have been hauled to court.

In 2020, Bersatu — led by Muhyiddin — quit PH, in what has been dubbed as the “Sheraton Move”, resulting in the collapse of the 22-month-old administration.

Muhyiddin was subsequently appointed the country’s eighth prime minister with the support of BN and PAS, only to resign 17 months later after Umno retracted support for Muhyiddin and the Perikatan Nasional-led government.