Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said PKR should not take too long to deliberate on the issue of a snap election for Penang as that would be “not practical and not feasible”.

“We will continue to discuss and convince PKR of our proposal to hold the snap election, and this will be based on mutual respect and trust,” Lim, who is DAP secretary-general, said at his office in George Town today.

He was responding to PKR’s decision not to endorse his proposal for the snap election as the party has yet to be convinced of the reasons to dissolve the state legislative assembly.

Asked how long he was willing to wait for PKR’s decision, he said “not too long” but added that he was not willing to wait until next year.

Asked if he would set a deadline for PKR’s decision, Lim replied: “I will not set a deadline.

“I will continue to wait to meet with PKR to discuss the matter. I have said we will decide by consensus and not unilaterally.

“There are some quarters who say we should do this unilaterally, but we feel we should not make a decision like that and that we should strengthen Pakatan Harapan based on consensus and trust.”

'Decisions must be based on consensus'

Lim said Harapan must follow the previous practice of making decisions based on consensus, instead of “adopting the practice of an eye for an eye as the whole world will become blind”.

He added: “We will continue to have faith in the people of Penang, that they will always reject a corrupt government.

“I believe in the wisdom of Penangites in choosing a clean government.”

He was also asked if he was not confident that DAP would win in the general election slated for not later than August 2018, for he could probably be jailed for his two corruption charges by then.

Lim said the same could be said of a snap general election, especially in the wake of the explosive US Department of Justice civil suit against 1MDB involving persons linked to Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

“We can always say the same about the coming general election: if you have no confidence about winning now, how can you be confident of wining two years from now?” he asked.

“We are confident of our support here but the final verdict is still the election.”

Asked if he felt that an early general election would be called next year, Lim said: “Let’s not speculate.”

He maintained that his two corruption charges were trumped-up charges and did not involve public funds, unlike the allegations against 1MDB, which involves RM13 billion, and yet no attempt has been made to account for it.