PKR has denied a news report claiming that the party's political bureau, which met last night, had agreed to appoint Dr Mahathir Mohamad as the chairperson of Pakatan Harapan.

"Unfortunately the report is inaccurate. Any formal announcement will be made through the Harapan presidential council," PKR communications director Fahmi Fadzil told Malaysiakini today.

Asked if the matter was discussed during the meeting, he said that discussions were ongoing, but declined to comment further.

The Malaysian Insight in a report cited sources as saying that PKR had agreed to the Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) chairperson heading the Harapan pro-tem committee as chairperson, while PKR president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail would be the coalition's president.

However, others present at the meeting, also told Malaysiakini that nothing had been finalised.

"Not yet. Discussions are going on. There are some ideas thrown around that are still debatable," one of them said.

Similarly, another political bureau member told Malaysiakini that the matter must be discussed with other Harapan parties before a final decision can be made.

The source said there are differences in terms of power between the chairperson and president, just like in a company structure, therefore PKR wanted to clarify this before making any decision.

The idea of Mahathir as Harapan chairperson was reportedly mooted by Bersatu at the coalition's leadership council meeting last Friday. 

It was also reported that Bersatu wanted its president Muhyiddin Yassin to be appointed to the same post in Harapan. 

However, sources present at the meeting told Malaysiakini that Muhyiddin had agreed to a counter-proposal from other parties for Wan Azizah to be Harapan president instead. 

They also said that all Harapan parties had agreed to appoint jailed former opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim as the coalition's de facto leader. 

However, PKR was unable to agree to the overall proposal, as it had to refer the matter to Anwar. 

This was due to a communique from Anwar to the political bureau two weeks earlier, urging them to stick to the originally proposed pro-tem committee so that the coalition could quickly move on to campaigning for the next general election. 

Initial reports about a possible Harapan leadership line-up placed Anwar and Mahathir as co-advisors, while Wan Azizah was named as chairperson, with Muhyiddin as her deputy. 

The push to give Mahathir and Bersatu more prominent leadership roles in the coalition is reportedly meant to trigger a Malay tsunami in favour of Harapan.