“Their arithmetic is not right,” the PPBM chairman told a press conference at the conclusion of the roundtable conference entitled “Save Malaysia”, initiated by DAP at a private club here.
He said this in response to a question whether his party was amenable to the proposal.
Recently, several PAS leaders had urged PPBM to leave the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition that consisted of DAP, PKR and Amanah to join their bloc.
This was despite PPBM deputy president Mukhriz Mahathir meeting senior PAS leaders to persuade them to take on BN in straight fights.
The former prime minister said there would still be three-cornered fights with PH, BN and the PAS-led bloc if PPBM left.
Mahathir said PPBM was still hoping PAS would join the opposition to collectively take on BN.
Earlier, when addressing the conference, Mahathir said democracy was a game of numbers and the opposition needed to form the majority in the Dewan Rakyat to govern Malaysia.
He said the opposition must convince the Malays, who form the majority in Malaysia, to support them.
That was the reason why Malay-majority seats were drawn by the Election Commission to ensure BN stayed in power, the former prime minister said.
He said Najib was frightening the Malays by using the racial and religious card so that the community would remain with him and BN.
Mahathir also recalled he was once identified as a Malay ultra by the late Singapore prime minister Lee Kuan Yew and it took some time to erase that label among the Chinese.
Singapore was part of Malaysia from 1963 to 1965.
Mahathir said due to this, he lost to Yusof Rawa of PAS by a 900-vote majority in the 1969 parliamentary election as the Chinese voted for the Islamist party.
However, he said it was the Chinese who saved him and BN in the 1999 general election when he was prime minister.
“They supported me because the government saved them from bankruptcy following the 1997 financial crisis,” he said.
Mahathir said he was against the mass migration of Chinese nationals from mainland China as it would change the demography of Malaysia and threaten the dominance of the Malays.
Mahathir had claimed that the Chinese were buying properties in Forest City, Johor, as part of the migration process.
He denied he was anti-Chinese, saying he was pro-Malaysian. He said he worked for the wellbeing of this nation.
“This multiracial country has developed and prospered and we should not change it.”