Tun Mahatir should sort out Bersatu-UMNO internal feuds without dragging PH into the mess

I urge top Pakatan Harapan leaders to strengthen all component parties, I also urge Tun Mahatir to resolve Bersatu-UMNO internal feuds first without dragging Pakatan Harapan into the mess.

The social media campaign #DemiMalaysiA has aimed to coerce PKR and PKR president Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to accept the terms of working with Tun Mahatir Mohamad as future Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister candidates for Pakatan Harapan. The move is detrimental to PH, especially PKR and Datuk Sri Anwar Ibrahim as it comes at a time where there have been attempts to smear PKR and Anwar Ibrahim as power-crazy for not putting the nation’s interests above all personal interests. There have been venomous political smear campaigns in disguise to destroy PKR as the only long-surviving Malay-majority multicultural party while trying to sustain a corrupt Malay-Islam supremacist governance.

DAP Organizing Secretary Anthony Loke’s statement in urging Anwar Ibrahim and PKR to respond to the ultimatum in accepting the proposal that Tun Mahatir as PH’s future Prime Minister and Anwar Ibrahim as Deputy Prime Minster candidates, respectively, came as a shock to me. The contents of the statement apparently were not collectively decided by the DAP’s Central Executive Committee, nor it receives great support from our rank-and-file:

1. The Pakatan Harapan is made up of three core parties-that is, PKR, DAP and Amanah. The key leaders for the future PH government should be from these three parties. Tun Mahatir has no locus standi to be considered as the PH candidate for future Prime Minister as he is no longer a member of the Pakatan Harapan;
2. Tun Mahatir and the sacked Bersatu’s Members of Parliament should not drag Pakatan Harapan into their own party’s and UMNO’s internal factional feuds;
3. The choice of PH future Prime Minister candidate is purely an internal affair involving the three component parties of DAP, PKR and Amanah. Other dubious political forces should not be made involved prematurely in the process of negotiations for any future PH government structure and organization. Anwar Ibrahim is still the indisputable choice for PH future Prime Minster candidate for he has been the stalwart in providing narratives and foundations for Malaysia’s institutional reforms for the past 20 years, but on the contrary Tun Mahatir has been proven to be the stumbling block to institutional and GLC reforms.
4. The future Deputy Prime Minister choice or even choices should be from within PH component parties including PKR and PH Secretary-General Saifudin Nasution, Amanah’s President and Deputy President Mohamad Sabu and Salahuddin Ayob, DAP Secretary General Lim Guan Eng and Veteran Lim Kit Siang.

Working with Tun Mahatir was to topple Najib’s Kleptocratic governance, but now we need to further fulfil the promise of institutional reforms. Pakatan Harapan has to rekindle the spirit of Refomasi that has been instilled since 1998, and regenerate the second journey to true institutional reforms and economic transformations.

All Pakatan Harapan component parties should halt the petty talks about the choices of Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, but concentrate in regaining the lost grounds by focusing on larger issues concerning the welfare of the people. Re-strengthening PH grounds and regain our narratives for reforms is of the utmost importance than petty squabbles over the choice of Prime Minister-Deputy Prime Minister in the moment.

It should be remined that Malaysia is not for any Individual leaders but for all Malaysians. Pakatan Harapan and all component parties have provided a new hope for a truly New Malaysia even though we need to work harder for that cause and the principle of multicultural united Malaysia. we shall thank Tun Mahatir for helping topple Najib’s kleptocratic governance. Nonetheless, Pakatan Harapan is capable of finding a new horizon for reforms on its own feet without Tun Mahatir.