He said PH’s move to select the 92-year-old former prime minister was in conflict with the “reformasi” (reformation) slogan chanted by some PKR supporters at Sunday’s PH convention, where the decision was announced.
“It is apparent that some PKR supporters still hold dear to the ‘reformasi’ cry – the very movement that Tun Mahathir quashed after he put its leader, Anwar Ibrahim, in jail almost 20 years ago.”
He said the move to nominate Mahathir as prime minister and PKR president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail as deputy prime minister in the event of PH winning GE14 showed a lack of foresight on the coalition’s part.
“What happened to all the grandiose talk about change? ‘Out with the old, in with the new?’
“It seems that Pakatan is using the same (old) map to chart its course to Putrajaya,” he said in a statement today.
Selangor PKR communications head Hizwan Ahmad had said earlier that it was strange for the coalition not to select its prime minister from the party, claiming that PKR had a sterling record in helming the Selangor government, where its deputy president Mohamed Azmin Ali is menteri besar.
“The Selangor government is proof that PKR can bring about change in the administration, championing peace and prosperity,” he was quoted as saying by Malay Mail Online.
“We find it odd that despite our long fight together and our proven extraordinary record, the party was unable to select our own leader as the PM candidate.”
PH chief secretary Saifuddin Abdullah had announced the candidate decision at the coalition’s convention.
He also said the PH government would pursue all legal avenues to free PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim, who is serving a five-year jail sentence for a sodomy conviction, with the aim of making him the eighth prime minister of Malaysia.
Anwar and his supporters launched the “reformasi” movement in 1998 after he was fired by Mahathir, who was then prime minister and Umno president, from the deputy prime minister’s post and Umno.
The opposition parties used the slogan as a rallying cry against the rule of Mahathir and Barisan Nasional (BN).
Mahathir founded PPBM in September 2016 after quitting Umno. The party was accepted into PH in March last year.