GE14 | Pakatan Harapan chairperson Dr Mahathir Mohamad last night announced that the coalition will be using the PKR 'eye' symbol as its common logo in the 14th general election.

Besides presenting a united front, contesting under a common logo also means that the temporary deregistration of Mahathir's party Bersatu will not prevent its members from contesting in the general election.

Mahathir and other Harapan candidates, however, will not need to join PKR to use the party logo in the polls.

Similar to former Bersih chief Maria Chin Abdullah's case, all that is required for Harapan candidates to use the PKR logo is an authorisation letter from the party.

Such election authorisation letters are signed by a high-ranking party leader, typically the party president, or in the case of registered coalitions like BN, by the coalition chairperson.

Issuing authorisation letters to non-members is not an unusual practice, and such persons are normally referred to as non-affiliated candidates contesting under their party's ticket.

PSM's Dr Michael Jeyakumar, for example, has contested the Sungai Siput parliamentary seat using the PKR logo multiple times.

This practice also allowed BN to implement the direct-candidate mechanism it used during the 2016 Sarawak state elections for members of splinter parties UPP and Teras.