'Their choice to leave', Zaliha says support remains for PKR amid Bersama challenge

JOHOR POLLS | Johor PKR election director Dr Zaliha Mustafa today said the party remained confident of retaining its support base amid challenges from former members now fielded on a Parti Bersama Malaysia ticket.

Speaking during a press conference at the party’s operations centre in Johor Bahru, Zaliha cited support shown for 20 PKR candidates during nominations earlier today.

“That was their choice - to leave PKR and contest under Bersama,” she said when asked for comments on the line-up fielded by Bersama co-leaders, former PKR MPs and ministers Rafizi Ramli and Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad.

Bersama president Syukri Razab previously announced that three out of 15 Bersama candidates - Norsinah Abu (Larkin), Stanley Tan (Stulang), and Dr Zamil Najwah Arbain (Permas) - were former PKR members.

Norsinah and Tan both worked for PKR’s Johor Bahru MP Akmal Nasrullah Nasir prior to joining Bersama, while Zamil contested in the March 2022 state polls as a PKR candidate in Larkin.

Earlier today, Malaysiakini learnt that Bersama’s Puteri Wangsa candidate, Nicholas Paul Vincent, was also a former PKR member for 13 years until his departure last month.

From the line-up, Nicholas is challenging PKR’s Maszlee Malik and three others in Puteri Wangsa, while the other three are in multi-cornered fights against Harapan components Amanah, DAP, and others.

Commenting further, Zaliha said, “Based on what we have seen throughout the nomination process in almost all 20 constituencies, the support from party members and the public has been very encouraging.

“Our strategy of deploying senior party leaders to every constituency, together with assigning support teams from other states to each seat, has helped tremendously.

“That is the unity we continue to see remaining strong within PKR.”

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