Under this proposal, the three PH component parties and PPBM will participate in the next general election under one logo, one manifesto and one candidate for every seat.
PPBM has yet to present the proposal to PH, but party chairman Dr Mahathir Mohamad said the tripartite coalition “must have been aware of it”.
“Today’s meeting was focused on one thing, which was PPBM’s participation (with PH), under one grand opposition coalition,” he told a press conference after chairing a PPBM supreme council meeting here this afternoon.
“We haven’t decided on the name yet. But we have agreed that besides a new name, we also need to have a new logo and symbol for the general election.
“We will formally inform PH of the decision we’ve made soon.”
Asked if he expected PH to agree to the proposal, especially to field one candidate per seat, Mahathir replied in the positive.
He said he believed PH would agree to form a coalition with his party because PH had realised that its failure to unite the parties to contest under one symbol was why it had lost in the previous elections.
“We will discuss this further once we are all in the coalition. But the principle here is that we will only field one candidate for each seat to represent the coalition.
“Then we will urge all of the coalition members to support and vote for that one candidate.”
Mahathir also said PAS was more than welcome to join the new coalition, although the two parties had yet to discuss the matter.
“We are open to forming an alliance with any party. Not just PAS, but there are also two, three other parties that are interested.”
This is not the first time the 91-year-old Mahathir, who was Malaysia’s longest-serving prime minister, has recommended the setting up of a coalition of opposition parties who have the common goal of defeating Prime Minister Najib Razak’s Barisan Nasional government.
Mahathir has repeatedly stressed that the only way for the opposition to become the government is by working together to ensure a straight fight against BN in the 14th general election.
In September last year, PPBM deputy president Mukhriz Mahathir made a similar call for a new opposition coalition which he suggested should be named “Barisan Rakyat”.