Shamsul Iskandar Akin and Khairuddin Abu Hassan, contesting the Bukit Katil and Jasin federal constituencies respectively, said they were confident of victory on May 9.
They said they were inspired by the large crowd who came to hear Mahathir, who is chairman of PH and PPBM, as well as ex-Umno leaders Rafidah Aziz and Daim Zainuddin at Bukit Piatu on Friday.
Thousands were said to have attended the rally, to help promote Shamsul’s chances against BN’s Mohd Ali Rustam, a former Melaka chief minister.
Shamsul said: “The presence of Mahathir, Daim and Rafidah is a morale booster and we will go all out to reach the fence-sitters.”
Shamsul, a PKR vice-president and Melaka PKR chief told FMT that Pakatan Harapan could win four of the six parliamentary seats it was contesting and at least 16 of the 28 state seats to capture the Melaka government.
He added that he was confident of retaining his own seat. He said PH candidates were also making significant inroads in other state and parliamentary seats.
Shamsul was believed to be in an uphill battle after the redrawing of the constituency’s boundary had resulted in it becoming a predominantly Malay area.
Khairuddin said his election workers were in high spirits as they saw an impending “Malaysian tsunami” with strong multi-racial support for PH candidates.
Mahathir, 93, had also visited Merlimau town in Jasin to lend support to Khairuddin, a former Umno Batu Kawan division vice-chairman.
Khairuddin, a fierce 1MDB critic, said that he had even received support from Umno members and leaders in Jasin since nomination day, as they no longer had faith in the party’s present leadership.
“The growing local support and large crowd presence at our gatherings have also motivated our campaign workers to keep up the momentum until polling day,” he said.
Khairuddin said Daim had dropped in at his operation centre on Saturday morning to encourage PH workers. The former finance minister went for a walk in town and visited a market before leaving for Johor.