PUTRAJAYA: Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said Pakatan Harapan (PH) is not worried about the cooperation between Umno and PAS, which has been said to be the cause of Barisan Nasional’s (BN) victory in yesterday’s Semenyih by-election.
The Prime Minister, who is also PH chairman, said he was confident the cooperation would only happen during by-elections where the victory would not bring much meaning.
“In a by-election, a win or loss is not disastrous but in the general election, they would not be able to cooperate.
“If they cooperate, PAS would not get anything,” he told a media conference after opening the National Landscape Day at the Botanical Garden, here today.
In the by-election yesterday, BN recaptured the Semenyih state seat when its candidate, Zakaria Hanafi won the four cornered-contest with a majority of 1,914 votes.
Conceding the use of extreme religious issues during the campaign were among the causes of PH’s defeat, Dr Mahathir said PH would be conducting a post-mortem very soon to identify the real cause of the coalition’s loss in defending the Semenyih seat they had won in the 14th general election in May of last year.
He said the difference in the majority obtained also showed that Semenyih voters had changed their mind due to negative perceptions and religious provocations during the campaign period.
“There are some people who unnecessary provoke anger like painting cartoon of Prophet Muhammad, and this kind of thing doesn’t contribute towards the betterment of this country,“ he said.
On the failure to fulfill manifesto promises being seen as one of the factors contributing to PH’s loss, Dr Mahathir said the government needed more time to realise what was promised.
The Prime Minister said while PH would be working towards meeting election pledges, the government also needed time to pay the more than RM1 trillion debt left behind by the previous government.
Taking the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) project debt as an example, Dr Mahathir said the government had to pay RM200 million in interest every six months for the RM55 billion loan that was taken to implement the project.
“This means the money we have which should be used to help the people was forced to be used to pay the debt left to us,” he said.
Dr Mahathir also defended PH’s allegations against PAS, because it was confident what was said was true such as the promise not to support Umno in Semenyih, as well as the RM1.4 million paid to Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle-Brown to settle out of court the defamation suit involving PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang.
Dr Mahathir said PH also has evidence on the payment and the matter could not be hidden from the people.
He said he did not blame the individual (Rameli Musa) who was linked to the payment of the money by Abdul Hadi to Rewcastle-Brown, but was upset with the way PAS had lied about it. — Bernama
