Pakatan Harapan (PH) should accept Muda as a component party as supporters want to see a united opposition, incumbent Segambut lawmaker Hannah Yeoh said.
Backing the youth-based party’s bid to join PH, she said there was enough room for Muda and other like-minded parties in the coalition.
“In politics, you will always have new players and I think that’s a good thing for Malaysian politics.
“If we share the same values, there is no need for us to run each other down just because Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman (Muda president) uses a different logo from mine,” she was quoted as saying in Free Malaysia Today.
On October 12, PH chairman Anwar Ibrahim said that the coalition would work with Muda in the upcoming election.
He said that the PH presidential council decided that the cooperation would be in the form of an electoral pact instead of Muda becoming a component party in the coalition – as that would require the approval of the Registrar of Societies.
PH then set three conditions for Muda – that it would back the coalition’s prime ministerial candidate, that it would not demand to stand in seats held by a PH incumbent, and that it would obtain the permission of the coalition’s presidential council if it wanted to work with other parties.
On Sunday, Muda deputy president Amira Aisya Abdul Aziz said the party had asked for fewer than 15 parliamentary seats in the upcoming polls.
She said that discussions had been positive and that 70% of seat allocation had been completed. The rest were overlapping seats.
Yeoh, who has been speaking at Muda’s events in recent weeks, said it was common to discuss seats among the coalition but an agreement must be reached before the election.
“It’s not just about Amanah and Muda,” she said. “Let’s talk about seat quota for women. Even that is contentious and heated.”
Yeoh also urged the youth to go out and vote and not give Barisan Nasional and Perikatan Nasional a free ride in the national polls. – TMI