AFTER announcing his candidacy for the Cameron Highlands by-election last week, MyPPP president M. Kayveas today changed his mind, saying his party will instead give the Pakatan Harapan candidate its full support.  

He said MyPPP will “openly and aggressively” support M. Manogaran, who is from DAP.

“They can count on us to bring all our support to the ballot box for them. PH is what Cameron Highlands needs.

“The name says it all: the coalition of hope. This is what is needed to defeat the cynicism and domineering ways of Barisan Nasional,” he said at the nomination centre today. 

Six days ago, Kayveas had told a media conference at the MyPPP headquarters in Kuala Lumpur that he would contest the by-election with the support of the party’s supreme council.

He even said MyPPP had “3,000 votes in hand”.

“The party’s supreme council… they have recommended me as the candidate. To make the by-elections more exciting, we should contest,” he had said.

With Kayveas’ withdrawal, the Cameron Highlands by-election on January 26 will be a four-cornered fight between Manogaran, BN candidate Ramli Mohd Noor, and independents Sallehudin Ab Talib and Wong Seng Yee.

Kayveas said he is not contesting because he does want wish to be a spoiler. 

“I want to let Pakatan and BN have a straight fight. If I contest I may be the kingmaker and my party has decided not to do it,” said Kayveas, who has been in dispute with another party leader, Maglin D’ Cruz, for the presidency.

The legitimacy of his leadership of MyPPP was affirmed by the Registrar of Societies in May last year.

Although MyPPP is a long-time BN component party, Kayveas said he is backing PH as he feels he has been sidelined by BN for too long. 

“Although I was (the party) president, I accepted it when they didn’t let me contest in 2013. But they did it again in 2018,” he said.

Kayveas is formerly the Taiping MP and a senator, and was deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Department under the Abdullah Ahmad Badawi administration.

He had wanted to contest the Cameron Highlands seat last year but could not convince the BN leadership. – January 12, 2019.