DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said they had doubts over the commitment of the four assemblymen towards genuine political reform and that the party was unhappy with PH’s move to consider two of the four for nomination as candidates.
However, he hinted that ultimately coalition unity would triumph.
“At a meeting last night, the DAP central executive committee (CEC) unanimously resolved to reject all four Melaka assemblymen, who had earlier withdrawn support for then Melaka chief minister Sulaiman Md Ali, to be nominated as PH candidates for the coming state election.
“Clearly DAP has only been successful in convincing our allies in PH to reject only two out of the four assemblymen,” he said in a statement, referring to remarks by PKR president Anwar Ibrahim that PH was still considering two of the four assemblymen.
Despite this, Lim said, the DAP would be consistent in defending its principles and integrity by urging PH to distance itself from “kleptocrats, opportunists and crooks” so that the coalition would not “lose its moral high ground”.
“Unfortunately, DAP had previously been outvoted within PH by PKR and Amanah. Thus, we were compelled to abide by the majority decision in the interests of coalition unity. However, this does not mean that such a majority decision made previously is correct.”
Hoping “good sense will prevail within PH”, Lim urged his PH allies to choose those who were sincere to the aspirations of PH and not those “motivated by sheer political opportunism”.
On Saturday, Anwar announced that PH had “almost finalised” a decision on whether to accept two former Melaka assemblymen from Umno who played a part in the collapse of the state government last month.
He had said: “There’s been heated discussion about this. And now it is coming to an end – the status of two assemblymen, originally from Umno, on whether or not they will be accepted”. He was referring to Idris Haron and Nor Azman Hassan.
Anwar also called on PH component parties to be prudent in their discussions about including Idris, Nor Azman and Bersatu’s Noor Effandi Ahmad, who was also part of the move that brought down the previous state government.
He said prudence was required as the decision could have an impact on the outcome of the state election, to be held on Nov 20.
The coalition had previously shut the door on former DAP man Norhizam Hassan Baktee, the Pengkalan Batu incumbent, who had also retracted his support for the previous Barisan Nasional-led state administration.