KUALA LUMPUR, May 25 — Umno Youth chief Datuk Dr Muhamad Akmal Saleh has defended Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s remarks that political appointments by a government do not constitute abuse of power.

In a Facebook post, Muhamad Akmal also thanked the Tambun MP for what he described as finally understanding the Barisan Nasional (BN) government’s previous actions.

“Alhamdulillah. Thank you, Prime Minister, for finally understanding what the BN government did in the past,” he wrote, as reported by Utusan Malaysia.

Anwar, during his winding-up speech at the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) National Congress in Johor Bahru yesterday, said governments should be allowed to appoint qualified individuals, and such appointments were not a form of power abuse.

“We should give positions to those who are qualified, as a reward for their decades of service and contribution to the party’s struggle,” he said.

He also shared that many individuals had sacrificed their careers and savings to support the party without expecting anything in return.

“I remember a man named Pak Kudus in Tanjung Karang. He was one of the earliest to support me after I was sacked, living only on a pension of RM1,800 a month,” Anwar said.

“There were academic lecturers and medical specialists who lost their jobs and spent hundreds of thousands of ringgit, yet never asked for anything in return and lived the rest of their lives modestly,” he added.