Zaid said Shamsul Iskandar Akin had nothing to gain by concocting a lie.

Yesterday, Shamsul disclosed on a podcast that he had decided against pushing for a recount in Bagan Datuk in the last general election (GE15) on the orders of Anwar, the PKR president.

Shamsul was one of the three challengers to Ahmad Zahid Hamidi for the parliamentary seat in November 2022 and had intended to call for a recount as he was behind by only 348 votes, with 800 spoilt votes.

But he was persuaded by a 2.30am phone call from Anwar not to proceed as he was told that Barisan Nasional (BN) had agreed to join forces with Pakatan Harapan (PH) to form the government.

The elections resulted in a hung Parliament as no single party among PH, BN and Perikatan Nasional (PN) obtained the simple majority of 112 seats needed to form a government.

Last night, law and institutional reform minister Azalina Othman Said reprimanded Shamsul over the claim, saying he should focus on ensuring political stability in the country.

However, in a post on X today, Zaid said Azalina had no reason to be upset over Shamsul’s comments.

“This episode will not destabilise the government. Don’t worry,” he said.

Zaid said as law and institutional reform minister, Azalina’s first instinct should have been to find out the truth, rather than defend her “boss”, referring to Zahid, who is the Umno president.

“Would his true or false statement impair the integrity of the election? No.”

He added that even if there had been a recount, which was not mandatory, Zahid would still have won.