KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 27 — PKR is confident that voters can relate better to its logo, which is why it is going with the decision to use it in the upcoming Johor state election, according to the Opposition party’s deputy chief strategist Datuk R. Ramanan.
He acknowledged that some view PKR’s decision to field its candidates under its own party flag instead of the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition banner as indicative of disunity with political partners DAP, Amanah, and Upko.
But Ramanan told news portal Malaysiakini that Malaysians know the parties belong to the same “family”.
“I think it is not accurate to say that we [PH] are not united when we made this decision [that PKR uses its own logo while Amanah and DAP use the coalition’s].
“The public... some of them may look at it that way, but in reality, the citizens already know that PKR, Amanah and DAP are a family and we are working together.
“And this is also something that we can take as a litmus test for the next general election. I think, this way we can show the difference, if there is one to be seen,” Ramanan was quoted saying.
He explained that PKR is using the Johor state election to test the waters so it can convince its coalition partners to use the party’s flag again in the 15th general election.
Ramanan claimed PKR had been proven successful before when fielding candidates under its party logo instead of PH’s umbrella.
It is unknown if he gave an example to back up his assertion as the report was silent on this.
Four Opposition parties had contested under the PKR logo in the 2018 general election and succeeded in beating the Barisan Nasional coalition to win Putrajaya.
But PKR used its own logo in the last statewide election in Sarawak last month where it fielded 28 candidates, but failed to win a single seat out of the 82 up for grabs. The party had won three in the 2016 Sarawak election.
Ramanan told the news portal that the party leadership believes that the grassroots can relate better with the PKR flag, and have seen the amount of work its President Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has done.
“If PKR can show a really good performance, then maybe it would be a [good reason] for PKR leadership to convince others to use our logo in the [general] election.
“But, of course, it would still be up to the discussions among the presidents of the Harapan component parties,” he was quoted as saying.
Yesterday, Anwar announced that PKR will use its own logo in the Johor state election while DAP and Amanah will contest on PH’s ticket.
The PH chairman and PKR president said this was decided after the presidential council meeting at his party’s headquarters here today.
Anwar also said that although PH had agreed to contest in all 56 seats, it was still open to cooperating with other Opposition parties.
PKR organising secretary Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad also said that the party’s decision to use its own logo in the upcoming Johor state elections, is due to “overwhelming” requests to do so from the party’s grassroots and supporters.
In a series of Twitter posts, Nik Nazmi said that the PH logo had become a symbol of an era that included the downfall of the PH government in February 2020, and the Sheraton Move which preceded it — itself engineered by PKR’s defectors.
