KUALA LUMPUR, June 13 — Nurul Izzah Anwar has finally broken her silence over a meeting she had with Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad in London last year, at a time when the latter was reportedly contemplating leaving Pakatan Harapan.
She has since been credited as being the person who managed to convince Dr Mahathir to stay on, amid tensions at the time over PH’s leadership line-up.
“I think my mission at the time, my purpose… was to ensure the coalition remained intact, and to do so we needed to ensure there were compromises, and several degrees of engagement,” she told Malay Mail.
DAP strategist Liew Chin Tong recently revealed that Dr Mahathir wrote a letter last year to Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM) president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and told him to take the party out of PH.
The letter was written just before Dr Mahathir left for London during the Hari Raya holidays.
Back then, PH parties could not agree on the leadership structure and its office bearers, which was necessary for the registration of the coalition with the Registrar of Societies (RoS).
“I assured Tun Mahathir we could work together on a possible agreement, and that Malaysians were looking to us to unseat the Barisan Nasional government,” Nurul Izzah said.
“We needed to pull a huge rabbit out of the hat it would require something completely outside of the box
“I told him that I felt that a Tun Mahathir outside the coalition just wouldn’t work… the rest as you say, is history,” she said.
After that London meeting, PH agreed to name Dr Mahathir as the pact’s chairman and PKR president Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail as PH president. Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was made PH de facto leader.
PH won GE14 last month, and Dr Mahathir is now prime minister, with Dr Wan Azizah as deputy prime minister.
