A PKR MP urged party supremo Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to ignore criticism by Parti Pejuang Tanah Air (Pejuang) president Datuk Seri Mukhriz Mahathir’s and focus on bread-and-butter issues.
“Mukhriz just compared Anwar’s leadership to that of his father, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, when the latter was leading Pakatan Harapan.
“He claimed Mahathir had succeeded while Anwar failed. Should the PKR president respond to this? I say leave it. Johor voters don’t like seeing politicians arguing with each other,” said Pasir Gudang MP Hassan Abdul Karim.
Earlier today, Mukhriz criticised Anwar for not doing more to unify the Opposition bloc as many seats would be seeing multi-cornered fights.
He also targeted PKR’s decision to use its own logo to contest in the poll, instead of using the Pakatan banner.
“We didn’t quite understand that within Pakatan itself they are having two logos, so what happened to the big tent? So how do you contest under a big tent when you have things like that?” The Malay Mail Online reported the former Kedah Menteri besar as saying.
In January, Anwar had said he planned to rope in all Opposition parties — including Pejuang — to ensure that Barisan Nasional (BN) and UMNO would be defeated at the state polls.
But the “big tent” approach has not yet materialised, as evidenced by the severe clashes among the federal Opposition parties for the March 12 state election.
It is to note that Anwar was in prison during the 2018 General Election when Mahathir, with then Pakatan member Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia, defeated BN for federal power.
Focus on policies
But soon after taking over as the prime minister, Mahathir embarked on several moves to weaken Pakatan itself, one of it being by undermining the pledges made under the Pakatan Harapan manifesto.
Bersatu secretary general Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainuddin also admitted that Mahathir had instructed him to talk to several BN and PAS leaders to form a “unity Government”.
However, the nonagenarian backed away from the move at the last minute but his then-party moved with the plan anyway, triggering the Sheraton Move which dislodged Pakatan from Putrajaya.
On that note, Hassan urged Anwar to focus on announcing policies that would help alleviate the people’s suffering due to soaring cost of living.
“Let Mukhriz criticise Anwar all he wants, while leaving out BN and Perikatan Nasional leaders from his barrage of attacks,” he remarked. – Feb 28, 2022
