PUTRAJAYA – Parti Pejuang Tanah Air (Pejuang) did not reject the possibility to merge with other parties to defeat Barisan Nasional (BN) in the coming general election.
According to the Chairman of Pejuang, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, the proposal was raised by several opposition parties after realising the negative effect of disunity in several elections, including the Johor state election last Saturday.
“There is a possibility. The suggestion was voiced out by several opposition parties so that we do not go our own ways. It was obvious that our disunity caused us to lose, not because we lacked support.
“Actually, the party which won, BN, only got 35 percent of the votes in the state election. However, with this 35 percent, they controlled two-third and they can change the Constitution of the state.
“So, we found that this is a minority government but due to the rift in the opposition parties, they became a huge party and got the two-third majority with full power,” said Dr. Mahathir.
He added, the suggestion was also expressed by the members of Pejuang itself.
However, Pejuang will conduct thorough studies first because there could be bad effects emerging from the cooperation.
“That was among the suggestion given by the members and it needs to be studied thoroughly. We did not cooperate with other parties in the past due to the bad effects from cooperating,” said Dr Mahathir in a news conference today.
Earlier, he chaired the weekly Pejuang meeting at the Perdana Foundation. The meeting was also attended by the President of Pejuang, Datuk Seri Mukhriz Mahathir.
Among the itinerary of the meeting was to discuss about the factors of the party losing the Johor state election.
Barisan Nasional had a landfall win by seizing 40 state assembly seats while Pejuang was badly defeated with 42 of its candidates losing their deposits.
Meanwhile, Dr Mahathir said that the 15th General Election (GE15) should not be held soon. According to him, the people are not ready to face the GE and if it is held now, the voters may make the wrong choice.
“I think, if we have the election now, where generally, the people are not ready, only certain people would be happy and take part in it.
“We will get a result that would be bad for the country. Therefore, we need more time, so that the people have more time to consider properly on what they want to do,” said Dr Mahathir.
Two days ago, the Deputy President of UMNO, Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan said that the GE15 must be conducted immediately. According to him, it should be conducted this year as the opposition is very weak. -MalaysiaGazette
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