US envoy rejects Hadi’s claim it offered to help shape Malaysian govt leadership

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 6 — The United States today rejected PAS president Tan Sri Abdul Hadi Awang’s claim that Washington had offered to help topple Malaysia’s government, saying it has never sought to decide the country’s political leadership.

The US Embassy in Malaysia Chargé d’Affaires ad interim David H. Gamble Jr. said any suggestion that the United States had sought to determine Malaysia’s political leadership was untrue.

“The United States has never sought to decide Malaysia's political leadership.

“Any account to the contrary is false,” he said in a statement posted on its Facebook page.

The denial came a day after Abdul Hadi claimed that PAS leaders were offered assistance by a foreign power to topple and take over the government during former US president Barack Obama’s visit to Malaysia in 2014.

The PAS president said several party leaders had been invited to a meeting at the US Embassy while PAS was still part of the Pakatan Rakyat coalition.

He said then PAS assistant secretary-general Datuk Seri Takiyuddin Hassan and Ahmad Samsuri Mokhtar, who was his political secretary at the time, attended the meeting.

Abdul Hadi said the embassy representatives had discussed the possibility of helping PAS topple and take over the government, but the party leaders rejected any such foreign interference.

He also claimed that the US ambassador later met him separately and asked whom PAS was proposing as prime minister.

Abdul Hadi said he responded by asking whom the United States supported, before later recounting the exchange to former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who he said approved of his response.

Takiyuddin separately confirmed attending the embassy meeting, saying PAS had rejected foreign interference in Malaysia’s politics.

He said the embassy representative had asked whether PAS planned to topple the Barisan Nasional (BN) government at the time, but the party made no decision because it did not want foreign countries interfering in the country’s affairs.

BN was eventually defeated in the 2018 general election, when Pakatan Harapan won power after a campaign heavily focused on the 1MDB scandal and corruption allegations involving then prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.