Anwar plays down Rafizi's resignation

BUKIT MERTAJAM - PKR de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim brushed off the controversy surrounding the party's strategic director Rafizi Ramli's resignation as matters that would plague the state's performance in the coming general elections. "Rafizi will be issuing a proper clarification tomorrow but I don't see a controversy. He's resigning because he wants to spend full time on the party. He actually wanted to leave last year to focus more on party stability," Anwar said yesterday. He said Rafizi was resigning as the Selangor Economic Advisory Council chief executive and not the party because the latter felt it was a question of ethics having failed to provide more hours to party matters. "Previously, he could stand (working) several hours a day (on council matters) but then he found that PKR work was dragging him all over the country. Suddenly all this erupted into a major political problem with his resignation. "I find that odd. I was with him and he clarified the matter to me," said Anwar. On whether this, and the alleged support letter issued by the Selangor menteri besar's political secretary Faekah Husin to a company applying for state contracts, would affect the PKR-run Selangor's credibility, he dismissed it as a propaganda manifested by Umno media. "There was an instruction by the MB that no political leader can write a recommendation letter. I have not seen her clarification but we certainly have to look at it." He said the alleged discrepancies would not affect Selangor's performance in the general elections, and to imagine the collapse of a state due to a letter was "far fetched". "One political secretary writing a letter of recommendation and you think it's a major crisis? You don't think RM250 million taken by Umno is not a concern? "I don't want to blow this out of proportion," he told reporters when asked how PKR's governing style would fare in Selangor in the coming general elections. Source: The Malays Mail Jarumemas: The Mastermind...