PKR vice-president Chang Lih Kang said the potential cooperation between his party and Umno could take many different forms, including being in the same coalition or merely having an electoral pact.
“When it comes to cooperation, there are a few forms.
“For PKR and Umno, it could be that we cooperate in a political coalition together, whether that means Umno joins Pakatan Harapan or PKR joins BN, but that is one way.
“Secondly, we could also work together in terms of an electoral pact, or other (types of cooperations),” Chang (above) said at a forum last night.
He was one of the speakers at the forum titled ‘Realities of the PKR-Umno Cooperation’, which was hosted by Sinar Harian and live-streamed on Facebook. The panel also featured Selangor BN information chief Isham Jalil and political analyst Mohammad Tawfik Yaakub.
Chang compared the current situation between PKR and Umno to cooperation between two corporations, which must first start with a letter of intent and then the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) before, finally, the official announcement of cooperation.
“There is no need for us to jump the gun here, about PKR working with Umno or Umno working with PKR or who will be prime minister.
“None of that is relevant yet because we are now only at the initial stage. We are at the letter of intent stage,” he said.
PKR is still testing to see whether Umno has any intentions of cooperating with them, he said.
“We asked Umno, do you like working with Bersatu? No. Do you think the Perikatan Nasional (PN) model will benefit the country? No. Do you want to win in the coming general election? Yes.
“Then that means we can discuss further,” he said.
Chang, who is the Tanjong Malim MP, then asked for everyone to give space for the leaders of all parties to talk about potential collaborations.
“This is because our country has reached a level where we need a new political alignment and we need discussion to achieve that,” he said.
He explained that the new alignment cannot be like the infamous Sheraton Move of February 2020, because such a sudden decision without sufficient discussion would lead to another failed cooperation.
Meanwhile, Isham stressed that the most important point to ascertain before agreeing to cooperate with any party is whether the parties have shared causes they fight for, as well as similar values.
“In every collaboration, we have to ask: what is the purpose of this cooperation? Everything starts with intention. What is the cause we are fighting for?
“If it is a cooperation based on opportunism, it will not succeed. We will end up quarrelling if we do not have similarities in values and virtues,” he said.
Isham said the Sheraton Move was never about Umno cooperating with Bersatu in the 15th general election (GE15).
“From the get-go, this cooperation was supposed to last only up to GE15, until the Parliament dissolves.
“We never said we (Umno) were going to cooperate with them (Perikatan Nasional) in GE15,” he said.
Now that PKR appears to be offering an olive branch to Umno, speculation is rife on who might be their prime ministerial candidate if the cooperation actually happens.
PKR previously refused to accept anyone else other than its president Anwar Ibrahim as Pakatan Harapan’s prime ministerial candidate last year, when they were planning their counter-coup to the Sheraton Move.
Isham said if PKR insists on Anwar as the prime ministerial candidate, he personally believes Umno will not cooperate with PKR.
“This is my own opinion. Our fight is not to lift anyone up as prime minister.
“If Anwar is to be prime minister, the Umno grassroots will not agree (to the cooperation), so I say this early on, before we discuss anything else.
“If this matter can be resolved by PKR, then we do not know what may happen.
“But if the purpose of the cooperation is merely to lift someone up as prime minister, then it is not going to happen because our intentions are different,” he said.
On March 16, Anwar revealed that the party’s speculated cooperation with Umno remains in the initial stages of discussion and has yet to be formalised.
However, he hinted that there were Umno MPs supportive of the idea of a collaboration. - Mkini
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