Pakatan agrees on common aims, sticky issues remain

By Syed Jaymal Zahiid and Adib Zalkapli, The Malaysian Insider

Pakatan Rakyat’s top leaders today lauded their pact but agreed sticky issues need to be worked out in their quest to capture Putrajaya.

Among some of the sticky issues was a compromise on local government elections which is now worded as “strengthening local democracy”.

But PKR de facto and parliamentary opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is confident of overcoming issues and the tables will be turned against their political rivals.

In his inaugural speech meant to inspire, Anwar gushed that the pact’s maiden convention marks a new dawn for the opposition coalition, that it is now more united and ready to face the obstacles as a single political force.

“In today’s convention, we have shown a new era of greater cooperation where we will endure the accusations that have been thrown against us and prevail together,” he said.

But there was also admission by Anwar that the pact, which is awaiting legal approval to be a formal coalition, must not let the March 8 success-that saw them deny Barisan Nasional a two-third parliamentary majority and took over four states — sweep it of its feet.

“We must repent… We did not win because our machinery is strong, we are in the Dewan Rakyat and controlling the four states because the voters gave us their trust,” he told the 1,500 delegates at a Shah Alam auditorium.

“The voters are trying us, testing us, let us not betray them,” he added.

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