Stop daydreaming about retaining Selangor, Rafizi warns PKR

 

If Pakatan Harapan loses power in Selangor, it would be like entering a cave from which they could never get out, says Rafizi Ramli.

PETALING JAYA: Pakatan Harapan (PH) and PKR should not be overconfident about retaining power in Selangor for another term at the next general election, says PKR vice-president Rafizi Ramli.

“If the leadership of PH and PKR are still daydreaming about easily retaining Selangor, I would suggest that we splash water on their faces,” Rafizi told party members at a campaign event for the party elections next month.

Rafizi is contesting for the party’s deputy presidency. His rival is party secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution Ismail.

Reminding party members that the opposition coalition had suffered losses in recent state elections, Rafizi said: “If we were defeated only for the first time, it would be okay, we can do better the second time. But we have lost four times!”

Were the coalition to lose power in Selangor next, “it would be akin to entering a cave from which we would never be able to get out”, he said.

PH captured power in Selangor and four other states in the 2008 general election, and was returned to power in 2013 and 2018.

Rafizi said that the current political scenario was different from 2018, when PH surprisingly won the parliamentary general election and formed the federal government.

However, the opposition has suffered a series of setbacks in by-elections and at state assembly elections since then.

Last month, Barisan Nasional won a thumping victory in Johor, capturing 40 seats in the state assembly, while PH won 12 seats, 11 through DAP and Amanah and one from PKR, followed by Perikatan Nasional (3) and Muda (1).

“If this was the result (we got) in Johor, then we can expect the same (result) in GE15,” he said.

As long as PKR leaders failed to respond to the signals shown from the results of the state elections in Sabah, Melaka, Sarawak and Johor, the chances of the party losing power in Selangor next were high.

Rafizi speculated that the general election would be held in August, and warned Selangor PH leaders with positions in the state government and city councils, as well as those serving as state assemblymen, to be prepared to lose their positions three or four months from now.

Should the state be lost, the opposition coalition would find it difficult to win it back, as well as power in Putrajaya, at the following general election, he said. - FMT