PAKATAN Harapan senior leader Muhyiddin Yassin set a defiant tone last night, signalling that the coalition was ready for multi-cornered fights – a possibility now that PAS is forming a third opposition pact.

Muhyiddin, who is also Bersatu president, disclosed he would be PH’s election director and his first task was to set up a war room for the 14th general election.

“The first thing is to call for a meeting and ask each party (in PH) to send representatives to sit with me,” Muhyiddin told The Malaysian Insight.

“We have to set up and manage a war room and chart out election strategy for the coalition,” he said when met after a Bersatu open house in Kg Batu Muda, Kuala Lumpur.

He, however, said he was not involved in the coalition’s seat negotiations.

PH comprises of Bersatu, Amanah, PKR and DAP.

Locals at the open house said they were confident that Bersatu and PH would be able to steal Malay votes away from Umno and Barisan Nasional in the Batu parliamentary seat, where the event took place.

Muhyiddin was appointed one of three deputy presidents in the PH presidential council unveiled on July 13.

PH’s long-awaited announcement comes as it faces the ruling BN and its former ally, PAS, which is forming a third opposition bloc called Gagasan Sejahtera.

PAS had announced that it plans to contest in nine out of 12 parliamentary seats in the Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and Labuan.

All nine of the seats are currently being held either by BN or PH. One of them is Batu, a PH-held constituency where last night’s open house took place.
In his speech earlier, Muhyiddin urged the nearly all Malay crowd to abandon BN and choose PH as the latter was a viable and better alternative.

He said that BN’s dominant Malay party, Umno, was only an organisation representing the interests of a select few who are led by Prime Minister Najib Razak.

Muhyiddin continued to accuse Najib of being ultimately responsible for the estimated RM39 billion in losses and RM50 billion in debt accrued by state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MBD).

“There is no one more important in that company than the prime minister. He is fully responsible for all the money siphoned off from 1MBD. That money belongs to the public and to the people of Batu,” he said.

Scandals in 1MDB have triggered investigations in six countries and have seen bankers being jailed in Singapore for laundering money allegedly stolen from the firm.

Muhyiddin urged his audience to abandon Umno in the next general election.

“We are not enemies with Umno members. But we want to tell them that today’s Umno is not the old Umno. Umno is no longer relevant.”

Residents, such as Noramin Ahmad, said the turnout was encouraging given that Kg Batu Muda was an Umno stronghold.

Noramin also predicted that if PAS contested against PH and BN, the Islamist party would likely get sidelined by most voters.

“If PAS contests against BN, then maybe people will vote for PAS. But if it contests against BN and PH, people see it as a spoiler and ignore it,” said the 41-year-old.

His friend Mohamad Bakri said when PAS contested alone against BN in previous elections, its candidate would lose his or her election deposit.

Another resident, Zainal Bahri, said he left PAS to join PH partner Amanah as the former no longer has a clear direction.

“They no longer seem interested in the country’s problems, unlike Nik Abdul Aziz (former spiritual leader Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat).”

Musa Deen, on the other hand, joined Bersatu from PAS after being disillusioned with his former party.

“I no longer believed in PAS and personally I like (PH chairman) Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s ideas and how he works.” – July 25, 2017.