Amanah's Hulu Kelang assemblyperson Saari Sungib has offered to join PKR if the party allows him to contest against Bersatu's Azmin Ali for the Gombak parliamentary seat in the 15th general election.
Saari was speculated to have entered PKR after his former colleague in Amanah, Meru assemblyperson Mohd Fakhrulrazi Mohd Mokhtar, recently quit the party and reportedly joined PKR.
He later admitted to having advised Fakhrulrazi to make the move to PKR to strengthen the support for opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim to become the prime minister.
"I would like to offer myself to fight against Azmin Ali for the Gombak parliamentary seat in the next general election if I'm healthy and if the Pakatan Harapan leadership sees me as a winnable candidate.
"Since it is PKR's seat, therefore if I'm selected, I'm ready to become a PKR member," he said in a statement to Malaysiakini.
To prove that he is a winnable candidate to fight Azmin, Saari said he has at least 27,000 Gombak voters ready to vote for him in the constituency.
"Some members of society, including Indians, Chinese, Punjabis, Eurasians and Temuan Orang Asli, had met me to extend their support. In Gombak, they are numbered between 5,000 and 7,000.
"According to a PKR Youth leader, associations related to Minang, Bawean and Sumatera ethnic groups, comprising about 20,000 in Gombak, are ready to give support to anyone who fights Azmin," said the Hulu Kelang assemblyperson.
Gombak is PKR's traditional seat but its incumbent Azmin had left the party to join the movement to topple the Harapan government in February. Under PKR, Azmin was the deputy president.
Saari reminisced the time when he joined Anwar's movement when the latter was sacked as the deputy prime minister in September 1998, which brought to his active involvement in Parti Keadilan Nasional (PKN).
PKN, led by Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, was formed in 1999, and then rebranded into what is now known as PKR.
"I was considering joining either PAS or PKN, and ended up contesting in the 1999 general election under PKN for the Kuala Langat parliamentary seat.
"After the general election, I was appointed as a member of the supreme leadership council of the party," he said.
Saari claimed that being with the supreme leadership council gave him the opportunity to organise peaceful rallies, but they all ended up in confrontations with the police.
During his time with the party, he said, he was tasked with combining PKN and Parti Rakyat Malaysia (PRM) after two PKN vice-presidents failed to do so, in which he succeeded.
Throughout his political journey, Saari was arrested under the Internal Security Act (ISA) twice, once in 1999 and then in 2001.
In 2004, he contested in Paya Besar under PKR.
Subsequently, he joined PAS and won the Hulu Kelang state seat in the 2008 and 2013 general elections, before quitting the party in 2015 to form Amanah.
For now, Saari said he would continue to carry out his duty as Amanah Gombak chief as well as his role in the party leadership. - Mkini
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