ANWAR Ibrahim will be ineffective in heading Pakatan Harapan to the next general election if Dr Mahathir Mohamad takes a longer time to hand over the prime minister’s post to him, said PKR party stalwart Dr Syed Husin Ali.

Syed Husin said he does not trust Dr Mahathir’s timeline in handing over the post to Anwar as agreed in Pakatan Harapan.

“If the handover is closer to GE15, it would kill off the party (PKR) and Pakatan Harapan. Anwar would not have time to campaign.

“He must have at least two years before the end of this mandate to put forth his plans and campaign,” he said after an event today.

Earlier this week, Dr Mahathir said he will serve at most three years before he steps down.

“I promised I would step down before the next election and give way to another candidate. So I may have at the most three years perhaps,” he said at a dialogue organised by the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, US.

Although both Dr Mahathir and Anwar have repeatedly assured Malaysians that they intend to honour the pact, speculation has persisted as to whether the elder statesman would truly step aside for his former enemy.

The agreement has also not prevented internal squabbling over when the transition of power should take place, as well as suspicions that certain parties are plotting to thwart Anwar from gaining power.

Previously, Dr Mahathir had indicated that he would hold on to the post until he has sorted all the mess created by the previous Barisan Nasional administration. 

Syed Husin also said he does not trust Dr Mahathir over the handover timeline as the prime minister “keeps saying one thing now, and another later”.

“I can’t trust him on this. Sometimes he says he will act in consensus with other PH leaders but then he says he will do something tlese.

“He will say that he has forgotten,” he said.

Syed Husin also spoke about the reported two-year handover deal between Dr Mahathir and Anwar, saying that PKR at first thought the process to get Anwar’s release from prison would take about two years.

“In truth, there is nothing written on the handover date. We agreed that Anwar will replace Dr Mahathir as soon as he is released and pardoned.

“At that time we thought it would take about two years for us to get that process done. We didn’t realise it would happen so quickly,” he said. – September 28, 2019.