PKR gives malcontents a month to leave
Stung by a string of resignations by its lawmakers, PKR is asking disgruntled members to leave within a month if they cannot commit to the party’s struggle for justice and reforms.
Written by G. Manimaran and Neville Spykerman, The Malaysian Insider
KUALA LUMPUR, May 19 — Stung by a string of resignations by its lawmakers, PKR is asking disgruntled members to leave within a month if they cannot commit to the party’s struggle for justice and reforms.
PKR has lost 10 lawmakers — five MPs and five assemblymen — since it scored a historic win in Election 2008 to become the largest federal opposition party in the nascent Pakatan Rakyat. It now has 25 MPs after it also lost the Hulu Selangor by-election last month.
“I am issuing this notice to all who intend to defect to do so within this period, so the party can move forward,” PKR election director Fuziah Salleh told The Malaysian Insider.
The Kuantan MP said a month should be enough for members to “self-reflect and soul-search if they’re really committed to PKR, what it stood for and its struggle”.
Fuziah’s “notice” comes in the wake Wangsa Maju MP Wee Choo Keong’s long-anticipated resignation last Friday, just prior to the Sibu by-election.
Last month, Bakar Arang state assemblyman Tan Wei Shu along with other PKR state and division leaders walked out of the party in the midst of the Hulu Selangor by-election campaign.
The resignations could not have come at a worse time for the party and Fuziah admitted they had marred the image of PKR.
