PAKATAN Harapan has never worked with US-based Republican think-tank, the International Republican Institute (IRI), to overthrow the previous Barisan Nasional government, said a Pakatan Harapan minister.

Housing and Local Government Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin, who is also PKR Wanita chief, said she only knew that IRI was a pressure group focused on capacity building programmes.

“If you are referring to IRI that comes to Malaysia for leadership programmes and other things, I don’t think the claims are right.

“No such involvements in the general elections,” she told reporters at Parliament’s lobby when asked if the former Malaysian opposition, including parties in the Pakatan Harapan coalition, had worked with IRI since 2002.

News portal Free Malaysia Today earlier today reported that IRI president Daniel Twinning had admitted that the Washington-based outfit’s efforts in Malaysia had finally paid off in the 14th general election.

He claimed that the opposition’s victory would work in Washington’s favour.

“I visited and I was sitting there with many of the new leaders of this new government, many of whom were our partners who we’ve been working with for 15 years, and one of the most senior of them who’s now one of the people running the government said to me, ‘Gosh, IRI, you never gave up on us even when we were ready to give up on ourselves’,” Twinning was quoted as saying in a forum last month.

The forum was organised by by the Centre for Strategic & International Studies.

Another PH leader, who requested anonymity, said IRI only did public opinion surveys and helped the former opposition coalition to understand issues concerning the people.

“PH didn’t pay them anything and they did everything based on their own initiatives, and I believe BN benefitted from them as well.

“The surveys are all public and they also tracked opinion polls. They tracked issues like cost of living, GST, popularity of Najib,” he told The Malaysian Insight, adding that the PH never commissioned the think-tank to carry out surveys.

“IRI’s visions are to build democracy, promote democracy across the world.

“They have a long history of helping and promoting democracy. They are only doing public opinion surveys, they know we don’t have money so they do public opinion surveys, it’s up to you to act on it,” he said.

PKR vice-president Chua Tian Chang, meanwhile, said IRI had held seminars in Malaysia to discuss on the best ways possible to do electoral reforms.

“As far as I know their funds are used for programmes like this, the programmes were participated by opposition and all civil societies that were concerned about this kind of issue.

“All parties (in PH) didn’t receive and will not receive foreign funds. We (PKR) have made the decision since Reformasi when PKR was founded. We have not received a single sen of foreign funds,” he said. – August 6, 2018.