FORMER Selangor menteri besar Datuk Seri Azmin Ali has expressed regret for nominating Gombak MP Datuk Seri Amirudin Shari as his successor in 2018.
Azmin was one of the first few menteri besar to be sworn in following the 14th General Election (GE14). However, he was appointed to the federal cabinet 10 days later and thus had to relinquish his position as menteri besar.
The former Gombak MP stated that he nominated Amirudin while PKR nominated Ijok assemblyperson Dr Idris Ahmad.
“Perhaps, I made the wrong choice at the time but basically I thought that Selangor needed a young and progressive menteri besar who could continue the policies that had succeeded so far,” MalaysiaNow reported Azmin as saying.
“Sadly, I was mistaken. He failed to continue the agenda of caring for the people, and Selangor’s economic performance is going down.”
Moreover, Amirudin was previously considered Azmin’s protégé yet he eventually demonstrated his loyalty to PKR by unseating Azmin as the Gombak MP, a seat the latter had held for three terms.
This time around as the Perikatan Nasional (PN) Selangor chief, Azmin will square off with Amirudin once again in the forthcoming state elections.
Azmin further dismissed Amirudin’s achievements as menteri besar even as the former claimed that Selangor ranked third in investments for the first quarter of this year. According to the Malaysia Investment Development Authority (MIDA), Selangor ranked second in 2022.
“The amount of investment in Selangor during the Amirudin administration cannot be compared to previous administrations when Selangor was deemed an ‘opposition state’,” added Azmin.
He also accused Amirudin of trying to steal credit for Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) RM25 bil investment in Selangor.
The former Bukit Antarabangsa assemblyman also noted that AWS at the time was looking to invest in Melaka, but he gave his own reasons for saying that it should be in Selangor.
Furthermore, AWS committed to opening a data centre in Malaysia when Azmin was international trade and industry minister. Azmin met AWS representatives in San Francisco in May 2022.
Azmin also criticised Amirudin’s decision to end subsidies for the first 20 cubic metres of water for every household.
“In the name of realignment, Amirudin supposedly gives free water to the B40. But he forgets that after the pandemic, even those in the M40 group have become B40,” he claimed.
Azmin also dismissed an ongoing campaign by Amirudin’s supporters who credited the latter for an increase in the state’s reserves.
“What is the point of the huge reserves that are being hyped up? I used these for development expenditures. It is not the government’s job to keep (such funds) anyway.” – July 5, 2023
Main photo credit: The Edge Markets
