The Malaysian Insight

DAP has said it again: it does not agree with the nomination of the Umno defectors as Pakatan Harapan candidates in the Malacca elections.

Party organising secretary Anthony Loke said it has had no choice but to accept the PH presidential council’s decision, having been outvoted by PKR and Amanah.

Loke also reiterated DAP’s insistence that Adly Zahari be PH’s choice as chief minister if the coalition wins.

Adly was the chief minister of Malacca briefly after PH took the state in the 2018 general election. He is facing challenges from three other candidates to defend his seat in Bukit Katil: Hasnoor Sdg Husin of Barisan Nasional (BN), Muhammad Al Afiz Yahya of Perikatan Nasional (PN) and independent candidate Abdul Hamid Mustapah.

“As far as DAP is concerned, our position remains clear. We objected to the nominations of any defectors, including the two.

“That is our party’s decision, we have made it loud and clear, and we have mentioned that to the PH presidential council.

“We were outvoted by the other two parties to accept the two as PH candidates,” he said in a press conference held on Facebook, referring to former Umno members Nor Azman Hassan and Idris Haron, who were named as PH candidates by PKR president Anwar Ibrahim last week.

According to Anwar, the four assemblymen were not “political frogs” because they had not defected to other parties, they had only withdrawn support for the chief minister.

Idris will be contesting Asahan, a traditionally PKR seat, in a six-way fight while Nor Azman will contest Pantai Kundor, an Amanah seat, in a three-way fight.

The two are among four individuals who withdrew their support for chief minister Sulaiman Md Ali, leading to the dissolution of the state assembly and the snap polls.

The other reps are Noor Effandi Ahmad and Norhizam Hassan Baktee.

The DAP organising secretary said the controversial nominations will reflect badly on the coalition and make voters unhappy, but urged people to look at that larger picture of what is at stake when they come out to vote.

“We understand that there is unhappiness among our supporters on this decision, we acknowledge that, but we have tried our best to convince them that there are larger issues at stake.

“What is more important is that, as far as we are concerned, we want to make sure that PH can regain the mandate and we want Adly to become the chief minister again,” the Seremban MP said.

Loke added that the Malacca elections are among the hardest the party has ever participated in given the circumstances.

“This is the hardest election to date for DAP, especially the ban on physical campaigning. We can’t send our message to the voters. DAP will follow the SOP. We hope all parties will follow this and the election commission will enforce it fairly.”

To that effect, he said DAP will be conducting online ceramah every night on its official Facebook page, online talk shows and Zoom sessions with Malacca voters.

Campaigning is currently underway in Malacca. The state will go to the polls on November 20. – November 9, 2021.