We should be open-minded about political cooperation - Anwar

 

PKR president Anwar Ibrahim (above) said the party cannot be too harsh and reject all forms of cooperations with other political parties, be it from among the opposition or from within the fracturing Perikatan Nasional (PN) administration.

“In this current situation, we do not have the ability or the attitude of being too harsh in rejecting all forms of cooperation.

“Even now as Pakatan Harapan, we are ready to cooperate with all our friends from opposition parties, but do not try to seize power or intend to continue this greedy behaviour, cronyism, giving contracts without tender, and other such things.

“We will not agree. We want cooperation with all the opposition and even other parties, because we see there is tension within PN.

“We have to have an open-minded attitude and work together to save the country. The country can no longer go on (like this) because the current captain and his ship have lost direction,” Anwar said in a special address, which was live-streamed on Facebook today.

The Harapan chairperson said they could even work with their “enemies” as they have worked together with those they regard as enemies now.

However, Anwar said the principle of good governance cannot be compromised in pursuing new alliances.

“The issue of good governance. It is enough, the leadership and our ministers are replaced one after another, but still we are entangled with this issue of collecting wealth and the theft of our heritage.

“We cannot let this go on. If the rakyat allows this to happen, this means our country will continue to be flooded with crises,” Anwar said.

He pointed to the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, the vaccination programme, as well as recent custodial deaths as some of the issues the country is facing.

Though Anwar did not mention names during his speech, a few days ago Dr Mahathir Mohamad had said his party Pejuang was not interested in forming an electoral pact with Harapan due to the latter’s “baggage”.

Instead, the former prime minister had said Pejuang might seek an arrangement with Warisan and Muda, if the next general election were to happen before it is due.

“When we link with any other party, then, of course, their baggage will affect us. Their past will affect us.

“There are some people who are not very happy with DAP. Some people (are) not happy with Amanah or with PKR. We don’t want to be affected by their past performance.

“We want to be free, we want to be a third force so that the people have a choice instead of just the two coalitions,” Mahathir had explained then.

Meanwhile, the Umno leadership has been open about its intentions to break away from PN in the next general election.

There has also been speculation that Anwar plans to forge an alliance with Umno leaders like Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and Najib Abdul Razak, both of whom are facing corruption charges in court. - Mkini