KUALA LUMPUR: DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang has admitted that Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s role in Pakatan Harapan to attract rural Malay voters in the coming 14th General Election (GE14) is impossible.
Describing it as “Mission Impossible”, Lim claimed that if Dr Mahathir could not garner such support, then no other politicians could.
“We have two formidable challenges: firstly, to sustain or even increase the voter turn-out and electoral support for political change in the GE14 as compared to GE13.
“Secondly, a more uphill task to ensure that there is a political tsunami in the rural areas to match the political tsunami in the urban areas.
“If Dr Mahathir cannot help create a wave of change among the rural Malay voters for the GE14 in the remaining 100 days, then no other political leader can accomplish this ‘Mission Impossible’,” he said in his blog today.
However, Lim’s view contradicted with his ally, Parti Amanah Negara president Mohamad Sabu who, in December, expressed confidence that Dr Mahathir had the ability to attract rural Malay voters.
Mohamad was reported to have said that Dr Mahathir was more popular among Malay voters, especially from rural areas, compared to jailed opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
Dr Mahathir was once Lim and Anwar’s political foe but has turned ally in recent years when the former premier joined the opposition bloc.
Dr Mahathir was recently announced as Pakatan’s prime ministerial candidate and Anwar’s wife Datin Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail would be his deputy, if the opposition pact won in the next election.