Pakatan won’t capture Putrajaya, says Gerakan boss
By Syed Jaymal Zahiid, Free Malaysia Today
KUALA LUMPUR: Barisan Nasional should not lose sleep over the prospect of losing Malay votes if Umno shuns Perkasa, said Gerakan president Koh Tsu Koon.
This, he added, was because Pakatan Rakyat would not seize control of the federal government in the next general election.
The minister in the Prime Minister’s Department was responding to former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad who warned Umno that it could lose Malay votes if it alienated Perkasa.
“That is his personal view,” Koh told a press conference here after addressing a national unity forum organised by NGOs.
“Pakatan will never win because of the differences between DAP and PAS. DAP will never agree to PAS’ intention of setting up a theocratic Islamic state,” he said.
Several Umno leaders have called on the party’s top leadership to distance itself from Perkasa, which they believe was a stumbling block to BN’s efforts to rope in non-Malay votes.
But Mahathir, who said that groups like Perkasa emerged because of Umno’s failure to protect the Malays from extremist Chinese, considered this a suicidal strategy.
