Voters have a choice between BN which has been around since 1973 or an opposition which has formed five short-lived coalitions in less than three decades, said Communications and Multimedia Minister Salleh Said Keruak.

"The voters will have to weigh what BN can offer as opposed to what Pakatan Harapan can offer.

"BN has been around for more than 40 years while the opposition has launched five coalitions in 26 years that never survived more than two elections.

"Therefore BN offers the stability which the opposition does not have," he said in a statement today.

Salleh was referring to the predecessors of Harapan, namely Pakatan Rakyat and Barisan Alternatif.

Prior to that, the opposition, with Umno splinter party Semangat 46, had also formed two separate but overlapping coalitions, namely Gagasan Rakyat and Angkatan Perpaduan Ummah for the 1990 general election.

This is similar to the current situation, where apart from Harapan, PAS has also formed its own Gagasan Sejahtera coalition.

Salleh's comment elaborated on Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's speech at the Umno general assembly today where he said the next general election was a choice between an Umno-led coalition and a DAP-led coalition.

He pointed out that after the 2013 general election, Umno retained its position as the biggest party in the country while DAP emerged as the second largest party in the country.

This made the parties the dominant force in their respective coalitions.

"DAP also claims it garnered 85 to 90 percent of the Chinese votes, which no other political party can boast about. That makes DAP dominant on two counts.

"In the next general election the voters are going to be presented with two choices: either an Umno-led BN or a DAP-led Pakatan Harapan.

"This is the reality facing the voters, as what the prime minister explained," he said.