PUTRAJAYA, Sept 3: Dr Mahathir Mohamad has played down the prospects of Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman’s youth-centric party being successful in winning seats in a general election.
While noting that youths make up a major portion of the electorate in Malaysia, he said it would be insufficient to only bank on the support of young voters.
“In any constituency, there will be old people and young people. We (Pejuang) will appeal to the young as well. But if he appeals only to young people, it will be difficult for him to succeed,” he said at a press conference today.
“But we are a free country, he wants to do things on his own. He used to be a strong supporter of Pakatan Harapan (PH) but now he feels he needs to break away from us.
“So, we have a good relationship with him. We have no problems if the objective is to fight corruption and things like that.”
Mahathir also said Pejuang does not intend to contest many seats in the next elections as it does not aim to form a government by itself.
He reiterated that Pejuang will remain an independent party not tied to any political bloc, adding that a small party could still play a big role in swinging election results.
“(Winning) 30 seats would be enough for us. We’re not going to form the government by ourselves, but we’re going to be a determinant as to who should be the government,” he said.
