PENANG Pakatan Harapan held its first convention yesterday but it was silent about how the 40 seats in the PH-controlled state would be divided among the four parties.

Instead, PH chairman Dr Mahathir Mohamad gave a 30-minute speech, imploring DAP, Bersatu, Amanah and PKR to unite to win Putrajaya or it will fail in the 14th general election.

He pleaded with the parties to accept the candidates picked to represent PH in the elections, regardless from which component party they came.

PH first

Dr Mahathir said it is normal for those not picked for the seats they felt entitled to run in to feel disappointed.

He said what is important is winning the seats, not merely contesting them in GE14.

“What use is it to become the candidate but end up losing the seat?” he said at the convention at SP Arena in Seberang Jaya.

“If we don’t get to be the candidate, but we support the chosen candidate, there will be a bigger chance for us to get to Putrajaya… To win, you must support whoever is chosen as the PH candidate. 

“If you keep thinking ‘this seat is mine and if I don’t get it, I won’t support the candidate’, then that is the sure way to lose.

“I have told my own party, Bersatu that there will be seats we will not get, but as long as the candidate is from PH, we will fully back the person.”

Members of each individual PH party will have to set aside their loyalty to their respective parties and put PH as their priority, the Bersatu chairman said.

Once the decision was made on how the seats are to be divided, all parties and their members must accept it, he said.

Bersatu, PKR, DAP and Amanah make up PH, the new opposition coalition that will take on Barisan Nasional and PAS in GE14. This is the first time the four parties are contesting as a single coalition.

It is widely reported that the coalition has been having trouble settling the allocation of state seats among the four parties, including in the PH-ruled Selangor and Penang.

“Many, including the press, have asked me why the PH parties could not agree on this and that, namely the allocation of seats. It is not true.

“We have settled the parliamentary seats allocation, which was a big achievement,” Dr Mahathir said.

The federal seat division among PH parties in the peninsula was announced at the coalition’s national convention last month.

Dr Mahathir also said PH has even done better than the old coalition Pakatan Rakyat, which was made up of PKR, DAP and PAS before the Islamist party’s fallout with the other two.

PR only came together before the 13th general election was called, Dr Mahathir said, and the little time the three parties had together as a coalition caused them to be less united.

“But PH was announced much earlier before the 14th general election. We achieved our cooperation much earlier. We even had our national convention.

“This has never happened before (for opposition parties). We have achieved unity. Only with unity, we will be able to succeed.”

There is still time to correct “the little frictions” in PH, he said.

Time to oust BN

Dr Mahathir, who was prime minister from 1981 to 2003, previously said he did not fear the opposition parties each time he headed BN in the elections because there was no unity among them.

He appeared ill, coughing several times throughout his speech, but that did not deter him from repeating the message that PH must replace BN.

“We don’t want to keep being the opposition. We also want to be the government. We can do it if we uphold the PH principle and send just a single candidate for each seat.

“As long as we fail to stand united, the opposition will continue opposing and nothing else.”

He also stressed on the importance of having the right candidates to represent PH.

PH must tap into a much bigger group of voters not committed to parties but whose support is crucial, he said.

“To win, we need their votes. We need to know and consider their choices. They may like a certain candidate, who is maybe handsome or nice.

“Everyone is popular with some people, but not all the people. I am like that, too, as I have been called maha zalim (tyrant), Mahafiraun (pharaoh). In politics, you get called all sorts of names.

“We need to conduct culaan (polls) to see who is popular in our parties and among the people to field the right candidate.” – February 5, 2018.