Analysts pour cold water on Pejuang’s GE15 targets

Several political analysts have poured cold water on Pejuang’s hopes for a big victory in the coming general election.

(FMT) – Oh Ei Sun of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs described the party’s ambition of forming a new government as nothing more than “election talk”.

“The party will come to its senses once it realises that it has slimmer chances of winning,” he told FMT. “All of us can dream and Pejuang certainly has a big dream.”

Pejuang’s deputy president, Marzuki Yahya, was reported to have said the party intended to contest up to 120 parliamentary seats, and hoped to form the next government.

He said while Pejuang would split the Malay votes, its candidates would not be able to win much, with the exception of Mahathir, should he decide to defend the Langkawi seat

Azeem Fazwan Ahmad Farouk of Universiti Sains Malaysia said Pejuang’s aims were far-fetched

“Not a single political party in this country has enough support to form a government. Political parties have to form alliances like Barisan Nasional, Perikatan Nasional and Pakatan Harapan in order to be in power.”

He said Pejuang’s performance in the Johor state election, where it lost all the 42 seats it contested, was enough to prove that it would not pose a credible threat to other Malay parties.

Azmi Hassan of Akademi Nusantara said Pejuang should concentrate on Kedah only, where PAS was in limbo and Umno was gunning for the state as well.

“I think Pejuang has a better chance of winning some seats (in Kedah) rather than 120 seats nationally,” he said.

He said the party would have a hard time winning in Malay-majority seats as shown by its disastrous debut in the Johor election.

“The Malay voters are not very confident of Pejuang and the number of popular votes that the party got is meagre indeed,” he said.