THE victories for the Barisan Nasional-PAS pact in the last three by-elections have accelerated the marriage between the two former rivals, said Umno MP Khairy Jamaluddin.

The Rembau MP said the pact between the two Malay-Muslim parties was a direct result of the by-election wins.

“If you’re Umno and PAS and you realise that this is a winning formula, you stick to it,” he said today at a panel session on Post-GE14 by-elections: implications for GE15.

The two parties will soon announce a formal charter for the alliance.

BN scored a hat-trick in the Cameron Highlands, Semenyih and Rantau by-elections.

Khairy said the Umno-PAS alliance will instil the flavour of identity politics in the next elections. 

Pakatan Harapan’s stance on the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination(ICERD) had also strengthen the dynamics of the Malay-Muslim bloc, said the former Umnno Youth chief.

On a separate note, Khairy said people vote because of sentiments and perceptions. 

He said Umno and BN would have emerged victorious in the last polls if it was not for former prime minister Najib Razak, the 1Malaysia Development Bhd scandal and the goods and services tax.

“Within Umno today there is still a debate of whether 1MDB is real or not. I am of the view that 1MDB is real.

“Some say it’s just perception but it doesn’t matter whether it’s perception or not as people voted because of it,” added Khairy.

“I remember in the last general election if you took out the sentiment against  Najib, 1MDB, GST, we should’ve won because the reality was not too bad and I was quite proud of BN and the Umno government because we had delivered a lot for the people and 80%-90% of what we had done was good but it was clouded by this thing and that ultimately resulted in the loss,” he said. – August 28, 2019.