KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 15 — Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said he does not consider his bid for Port Dickson federal seat to be a foregone conclusion, saying the mixed constituency will be a challenge.
Taking questions from the floor at the Singapore Summit in the island-state today, the PKR president-elect said the seat’s composition was also why he chose to contest there.
“I’m not taking things for granted. I’ve been in politics a long time. I will go down and appeal to the voters.
“It (PD) is very mixed; one of the reasons I chose it is because 50 per cent of the voters are Malay, close to 30 per cent Chinese and almost 20 per cent Indian. So, it’s really a microcosm of Malaysian society” he told attendees.
He said he intended to get majority support from voters of all three ethnicities.
At the same forum, he also reiterated his faith that Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad will relinquish the prime minister’s post to Anwar according to Pakatan Harapan’s announced succession plan.
He said Dr Mahathir has given him no reason to doubt the transition will occur.
“He has been reiterating (this) every other day, because everybody kept on asking.”
Anwar conceded to the foreign press present that their doubt was understandable, saying that even Malaysians were not convinced.
Similarly, he said he was also made to repeatedly affirm his trust in Dr Mahathir.
Both Anwar and Dr Mahathir have reaffirmed their commitment to the agreement, despite allegations that one or the other planned to renege.
The two politicians have a complicated history tracing back to 1998 when Dr Mahathir sacked Anwar as his deputy; the two only made up recently after years of open hostility.
Datuk Danyal Balagopal Abdullah resigned as Port Dickson MP on Wednesday to create a vacancy for Anwar, but the Election Commission has yet to meet and decide on the dates for the eventual poll.
