The Malaysian Insight

PAKATAN Harapan’s leadership line-up of Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail shows the opposition is taking the Chinese vote for granted, an aide to the prime minister told Chinese leaders at a closed-door forum.

Special officer to the prime minister Isham Jalil asked why PH picked both as the coalition’s interim prime minister and deputy prime minister when DAP was the dominant party.

“Who is the dominant party in Pakatan? It’s DAP. Which community voted for Pakatan previously? It’s the Chinese. So why did they name Dr Mahathir? 

“Do they care about Chinese voters? They just want to attract Malay voters, Pakatan already forgot about you.

“They are thinking that the Chinese votes are already locked up. The Chinese votes, especially in Selangor, are easy, already locked,” Isham told the forum held last Friday.

Isham’s speech was in two short videos of the closed-door session which were sighted by The Malaysian Insight.

The session with Isham, it is learnt, was a collaboration with Barisan Nasional component party, Gerakan’s candidate for Bukit Lanjan, Syed Abdul Razak Alsagoff. 

The session with polling district (PDM) leaders of the Bukit Lanjan state constituency was held at Selangor Gerakan headquarters in Bandar Utama, Petaling Jaya.

Gerakan vice-president Dr Dominic Lau confirmed that the speaker at the closed-door session was the special officer to the Prime Minister Najib Razak, whom he identified as Isham Jalil.

Isham also said it was Dr Mahathir who was pulling the strings in PH, despite assertions earlier by several BN leaders that DAP was the puppet master in the opposition coalition. 

Communications and Multimedia Minister Salleh Said Keruak previously said the past actions of DAP veteran leader Lim Kit Siang showed that the party was the de facto leader in the opposition.

Given the majority seats that DAP had compared with others in the opposition pact, Salleh said, the party dictated what happened in PH, adding that the so-called partnership with Bersatu was merely to give PH a Malay face. 

This, however, was dismissed by Isham at the forum.

“Now let me ask you something, do you think you can ask Dr Mahathir to become your puppet? He is the puppet master, how can you ask the puppet master to become your puppet? Does it make sense?

“He was the prime minister for 22 years. He used people… you want to put him as your proxy, he will use you for his interest,” Isham added. – December 10, 2017.