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Dr M: We have to take on PAS
Published:  Jan 22, 2017 5:11 PM
Updated: 9:21 AM

The Pakatan Harapan and Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia's (Bersatu) has almost shut its door to PAS, at least according to Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

In an interview with Singapore's Straits Times that was published today, the Bersatu chairperson said the opposition coalition is ready to take on PAS.

"We are prepared for a three-cornered fight. We have to take on PAS.

"We think that in most instances we can actually beat PAS and the BN as well," Mahathir said.

Mahathir told the daily that the main agenda for the opposition was removing Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak due to the corruption allegations against Najib.

Therefore, PAS' reasons for refusing to work with DAP or Amanah defies logic, said Mahathir.

"They (PAS) claim they cannot work with DAP and Amanah.

"It's not a very good reason because they have worked with DAP before," he said.

PAS earlier said it will not work with Amanah and DAP because Amanah, a PAS spliter party, and DAP had previously betrayed them.

Making sacrifices

On whether Bersatu would emulate Semangat 46 (S46), an Umno splinter party which forged separate pacts with PAS and DAP for the 1990 general election, Mahathir replied in the negative.

"They failed very miserably especially S46 which is Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah's party.

"What happened is by doing that kind of thing, he benefited the other parties, but S46 was so disappointing in its performance that he decided to come back to Umno," said Mahathir.

As for his long history of enmity with PKR and DAP, Mahathir said his problems with these parties were "minor" compared to the need to remove Najib from power.

"All the opposition parties have accepted...the need for each one of us to make some sacrifice (to defeat Mr Najib).

"In order to do that, you must forget some of your pet projects and pet struggles. They are not as important as defeating Najib," he said.

'We are Singapore-friendly'

Meanwhile, Mahathir said that if Pakatan Harapan and Bersatu were to win the next general election, the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High-Speed Rail (HSR) project would come under review.

"We need to do a study whether it is feasible or not because we don't have the money and we have to borrow money and that is not something the Malaysian government can bear at this moment.

"We have to know whether we really need this HSR or not," he said.

However, he said that one consideration was whether the project needed to be expanded, even to Penang and the Thai border.

"All these things need to be studied carefully and to know what would be the returns on the investment.

"We accept that we will lose money at first but how much over how long a period.

"We built the Light Rail Transit and lost a lot of money in the beginning but now it is so crowded that we have to add more trains," he said.

Mahathir predicted that Malaysia's relationship with Singapore would remain cordial if the new coalition comes to power, but warned that Najib would likely distance himself from the island republic to please China.

"If we have a lot of Chinese investment in Malaysia, they will want to secure their investment and influence the Malaysian government to help them whatever way we can.

"They will want to make sure that we do not side with Singapore in any dispute with China," he said.

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