Najib will still be in power if not for Bersatu, claims Dr M

Pakatan Harapan's most junior member, Bersatu, may have won only 13 seats on May 9, but its chairperson Dr Mahathir Mohamad said his party was key to the coalition's victory.

"If not for Bersatu in the 14th general election, (former prime minister) Najib (Abdul Razak) would have won," Mahathir said in a recent interview.

He argued that without Bersatu, Najib would have lost the popular vote at the elections but because of the voter disparity between rural and urban seats, BN would still win enough seats to form government.

"But they would have formed an incompetent, crooked government. A kleptocracy," the prime minister added.

Observers have credited Bersatu in part for triggering a shift in Malay support away from BN, which made it possible for Harapan to capture Putrajaya.

As Malays comprise the majority of voters and the rural Malay heartland is given higher weightage under the current electoral system, any swing would have a profound impact on the election results.

The shift in support in GE14, for example, also greatly benefited Bersatu's ally PKR, which won 47 parliament seats in the May 9 elections compared to 30 in 2013.

‘Malays don’t accept multiracial parties’

Mahathir said part of the reason why Bersatu was able to secure Malay support was because it was a bumiputera party.

"Malays want a strong party... Malays feel scared, they feel threatened; they feel that if they are small, they can't get anything from equal treatment in this country.

"So they can't join PKR because they don't accept multiracial parties, they can't join Amanah, which is also multiracial, and they certainly can't join DAP. So what is their choice?"

However, Mahathir said Bersatu alone could not have defeated Umno and BN, which was why it joined Harapan.

Meanwhile, on how to make Malays less reliant on affirmative action, Mahathir reiterated that this would require a change in the value system among those in the majority community to one that works hard and strives for success. - Mkini