KOTA BARU, Nov 10 — The Pakatan Harapan (PH) government will ensure democracy in the country, which was severely damaged by the previous government, will flourish again, said Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

He said the PH government held to principle of separation of powers between the legislative, executive and judiciary unlike what had been done by the previous leaders.

"We (government) will respect the separation of powers between the three branches, not like the previous leaders who thought they could act with impunity.

"The final arbiter is a judiciary that is free of outside influence. Before wrongdoers were not brought to justice,” he told reporters after a gathering with Kelantan PH leaders here today.

More that 1,000 PH leaders attended the event. 

Commenting further, Dr Mahathir said the people should back the PH government so that there will be no repeat of leaders straying.

He said the essence of democracy was giving people real freedom to choose their government and this was proven in the 14th General Election (GE14) when the "rakyat” (people) booted out the old government.

Dr Mahathir further assured that the PH government would have the people’s interests at heart.

Meanwhile, Dr Mahathir said that PH was confident of wresting Kelantan in GE15 based on the people’s support from the state for the current (federal) government.

"From what I see, PH can take over Kelantan in GE15,” he said, adding that the Kelantanese people could judge for themselves the sincerity of the PH government in wanting to serve the rakyat.

On unfulfilled manifesto promises, Dr Mahathir said the rakyat could understand the actual situation as the new government was forced to be extremely prudent in financial matters following the mountain of debts the previous government had left behind. — Bernama