The Malaysian Insight

PAKATAN Harapan (PH) must reject working with politicians who party-hop and focus on building a united opposition instead, Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman said today.

The Muar MP said it was tragic to see PH negotiating to work with party-hoppers rather than its allies in the opposition.

“It seems that the PH coalition whom I’ve worked with closely prefer to negotiate with unprincipled party-hoppers rather than their close and loyal allies, like myself.

“They see more value in unprincipled ‘katak’ politics, which is truly tragic,” he said in an open letter to PH lawmakers.

On Saturday, PKR president Anwar Ibrahim said that Pakatan had “almost finalised” a decision on whether to accept Idris Haron and Nor Azman Hassan, two former Malacca assemblymen from Umno who played a part in the collapse of the state government last month.

The two, along with Noor Effandi Ahmad and and Norhizam Hassan Baktee, withdrew their support for Chief Minister Sulaiman Md Ali, which led to the dissolution of the state assembly.

Malacca will go to the polls on November 20, while nominations days is set for November 8.

The Muda founder also highlighted four main reasons why PH must reject these individuals, chief among them is that they are traitors.

“Once they betray the people’s mandate, and choose power over the rakyat, they will do it again, and again,” Syed Saddiq said, adding that the people deserve better.

Working with party hoppers, he said, will drag PH down to the same levels of those they seek to fight.

“How are we going to champion the anti-party hopping bill when we are equally guilty of the same?

“I sincerely believe that the opposition bloc is much bigger than the shadows of those four traitors.”

Syed Saddiq said the four who withdrew their support for PH after the 2018 general election did so for specific purposes.

“Idris jumped from Umno to PH just to be named a potential chief minister.

“He didn’t do it out of a sudden belief that Umno is a threat to the people of Malacca, nor did he jump because he’s a long-time critic of Umno, which he is not.

“So, what makes anyone think that after all of that, there’s even an ounce of loyalty and credibility from these four traitors?” he asked.

After GE14, Norhizam who was DAP’s Pengkalan Baru representative, and PKR’s Rembia assemblyman Muhammad Jailani Khamis defected, which led to the collapse of the PH-led state government.

Syed Saddiq added that if they were willing to flip the state government twice, they would not hesitate to do it for a third time. – November 3, 2021.