In an interview with FMT, Pejuang international affairs bureau chief Tariq Ismail Mustafa claimed Pejuang was more centrist than other Malay parties and said it hoped to win enough seats in the Johor elections to have a say in the formation of the state government.

“Yes, you can say we’re splitting Malay votes, but what Pejuang is trying to show is we are not taking sides,” he said.

“Even though we subscribe to Malay nationalism, we’re not at all about Malay supremacy and all the racial rhetoric. We want to show that Malays are accommodating and that we can work with other races.”

Tariq is Pejuang’s candidate for the Malay-majority Sedili seat. He left Bersatu with its former chairman, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, soon after the Pakatan Harapan government collapsed.

He said Johoreans and other Malaysians were jaded with politics and this was why there was a need to lay emphasis on the economy and healthcare.

Pejuang is contesting in 42 constituencies in the Johor polls, vying with Barisan Nasional, Perikatan Nasional (PN) and Pakatan Harapan (PH).

Tariq is in a four-cornered fight with BN’s Muszaide Makmur, PN’s Hasnolhadi Mohd Sebalas and PH’s Mat Khairi Samsudin. In 2018, BN won the seat with a 9,168-vote majority.

He said Pejuang was hoping to win enough seats to form a third bloc and have a say on the make-up of the next state government.

He predicted that PN would suffer heavy losses, saying its lynchpin, Bersatu, was “split on all sides” with members ditching the party for Pejuang, PKR and Muda.

He noted that Bersatu gained several Johor assemblymen from Umno after the last general election, but said it would be hard for these assemblymen to retain their seats since it was the BN machinery that was mainly responsible for their 2018 victories.