DAP organising secretary Loke Siew Fook said the party had accepted Anwar’s denial of being involved in the controversial recording purportedly between him and Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi. Loke said he was confident the opposition leader understood DAP’s principles on working with leaders outside of PH.

“Anwar has denied it openly and we accept this, based on our trust in Anwar,” he said in an online forum today.

“We cannot include kleptocrats who have been charged with corruption and other things. That’s a red line (that we cannot cross) and I’m confident Anwar understands this,” he said.

Zahid is facing 47 charges, 12 of which are for criminal breach of trust, eight for bribery and 27 for money laundering.

He and Anwar have both denied being the men in the leaked recording said to be of the two leaders. Some government figures have decried the audio clip as proof that there was a move to topple the Perikatan Nasional government.

Loke maintained that any cooperation that PKR wanted to establish with Umno would first have to be discussed at the PH presidential council.

However, he said both DAP and Umno were clear that there would be no cooperation between the two parties when facing the 15th general election (GE15).

The former transport minister said the ideal situation would be for PH to form a government on its own under Anwar’s leadership in GE15.

“But if we don’t have enough seats to form the government, we have to consider if there’s room for cooperation (with other parties).”