Anwar scoffs at Dr M, cites 2013 popular vote when he led election charge
PKR president Anwar Ibrahim has dismissed Dr Mahathir Mohamad's claim that Pakatan Harapan won't be able to get Malay support without the latter.
Anwar cited the opposition's performance in 2013, when he led the charge, as an example...
PKR president Anwar Ibrahim has dismissed Dr Mahathir Mohamad's claim that Pakatan Harapan won't be able to get Malay support without the latter.
Anwar cited the opposition's performance in 2013, when he led the charge, as an example.
"That's okay. He (Mahathir) is talking about how great he is. But Lim Kit Siang has answered this clearly.
"Even we (PKR) in 2013, when Mahathir and our friends in Pejuang were on the other side with BN, we won 52 percent of the people's support," Anwar said at a press conference yesterday.
In 2013 - Anwar's last showing in a general election as opposition leader - the then Pakatan Rakyat coalition of PKR, DAP and PAS won 50.8 percent of the popular vote.
However, this only translated to 82 Parliament seats due to voter malapportionment, which gave BN the advantage in rural seats with less voters compared to the densely populated urban seats where Pakatan was popular.
Play "Undi Power: How powerful is your vote?" to understand more about voter malapportionment.
Conversely, in 2018 when Mahathir and Bersatu were part of Harapan, the coalition together, with Warisan, won 121 seats despite only bagging around 48 percent of the popular vote.
The victory had several factors behind it, including a boost in Malay votes which allowed Harapan to capture seats that were previously Umno strongholds.
This was attributed to both support for Mahathir, who conservative Malay voters were familiar with, and disdain for then prime minister Najib Abdul Razak due to the 1MDB scandal.
Harapan was also able to gain more ground as those who did not support them split their votes between BN and PAS.
Mahathir, in an interview with China Press last week, said Harapan would not be able to get Malay support without him.
"So, if Anwar excludes me, this means that Anwar is going to exclude Malay support, Anwar will lose,” he said.
However, Harapan has had declining support since 2019.
In the Slim by-election, the candidate backed by Mahathir and his new party Pejuang only won 13.9 percent of votes.
This was lower than the 33 percent secured by Bersatu in the 2018 general election.
However, Anwar has also not fared better.
In the April 2019 Rantau by-election, despite heavy campaigning by Anwar, the PKR candidate Dr S Streram only managed to get 35.8 percent of the vote against Umno incumbent Mohamad Hasan.
Rantau was not contested in 2018, after Streram was blocked from the nomination centre.
However, voting patterns at the parliamentary level indicated that, at that time, 48 percent of the Rantau voters backed Harapan, while 45 percent backed BN.
Despite Mahathir's criticisms, however, Anwar refused to say outright that he would not work with the former.
"It's OK. We've known Mahathir for a long time. Let it be.
"What is important is that PKR and Harapan are open. Anyone, any party that accepts good governance, rejects corruption... if they agree, we will include them.
"I don't want to fight with Mahathir. Last week it's this, next week may be different. So let's wait," Anwar added.
