Fadhlina said Nurul Izzah’s candidacy for the second-highest post in PKR would be in line with the hopes of the grassroots, whom she said “want change that is based on stability, sustainability, and loyalty to the party”.

“This is not a matter of whose daughter she is. Neither is it a matter of whether a male or female (should be PKR deputy president). It’s also not a matter of factions.

“This is about the continuity of the party, which needs rejuvenation in terms of its leadership,” she said in a Facebook post.

Fadhlina, the education minister, added that Nurul Izzah had been present at every phase of PKR’s journey, from the start of the “reformasi” movement and the party’s founding to the formation of the unity government.

Numerous top and divisional leaders have stated their support for Nurul Izzah, a party vice-president, to contest the deputy president’s post currently held by Rafizi Ramli.

They include vice-president Amirudin Shari, youth wing chief Adam Adli, and Shamsul Iskandar Akin, the senior political secretary to the prime minister, Anwar.

A party source had said more PKR leaders were expected to declare their support for Nurul Izzah.

Nurul Izzah was appointed as a PKR vice-president in 2022 after opting not to contest in the central leadership elections that year.

She went on to lose her Permatang Pauh parliamentary seat in the 2022 general election to PAS’s Fawwaz Jan, who won with a comfortable majority of 5,272 votes to defeat PKR’s “Puteri Reformasi”.