KUALA LUMPUR: Democratic Action Party (DAP) chief Anthony Loke has announced his resignation as Malaysia’s Transport Minister in protest over the conditional royal pardon granted to jailed former prime minister Najib Razak.
The party’s other ministers will remain in Cabinet to maintain political stability, he said at a press conference on Saturday evening after an emergency meeting of DAP’s Central Executive Committee.
This came a day after Najib’s pardon was granted by the Federal Territories Pardons Board meeting chaired by the Malaysian king, Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar.
“As a party we have a stand, we feel this is difficult to accept for DAP and many Malaysians, hence we have discussed for three hours and debated, we have reached a decision,” Loke said, while reiterating that the party respects the king’s power to grant such a pardon.
In a statement on Friday afternoon, Loke had also said that the party would continue “defending the rule of law and the fight against corruption”.
Najib will be allowed to serve out the remainder of his prison sentence under house arrest – subject to him paying a fine of RM50 million (US$12.26 million), the legal affairs division of the Prime Minister’s Office said earlier on Friday.
A solidarity fund launched for Najib by his party United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) raised more than RM634,000 within the first three hours, UMNO secretary-general Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki said in a Facebook post on Friday, adding that “many contributed as little as RM10 and RM50”.
