PETALING JAYA: PKR vice-president Xavier Jayakumar has pleaded for opposition supporters to have faith in Pakatan Harapan (PH) leader Anwar Ibrahim, after the opposition failed to stop the government from passing the 2021 national budget.
Xavier said that despite the result, the slim three-vote margin “shows that Perikatan Nasional (PN) does not have a clear majority in Parliament”.
He reminded supporters that since the fall of the PH government, “the person who played the most important and aggressive role, taking the fight to PN, was none other than Anwar Ibrahim”.
In a statement, he also said Anwar was the only leader to take it upon himself to try and take down the PN government.
“If he had succeeded, everyone would be rejoicing and enjoying the fruits of his labour. However, since the vote was lost in Parliament, can we now say he failed and must be removed?”
Xavier said many of the ministries would not have had their budgets passed if there had been greater unity from opposition parties and fewer abstainers.
“I would say ‘thank you’ to Anwar, for trying to bring back the people’s mandate. We need to remember that we live in extraordinary times and this means that extraordinary measures need to be taken to save the nation.”
He said the people must remember that the downfall of the PH government was not because of Anwar, “but due to Tun Dr Mahathir’s (Mohamad) unilateral decision to resign as prime minister without consulting other PH leaders.
“This was after we gave him a chance to join us in making changes. His party was a minority in the government, even then we gave him the opportunity to become prime minister and yet he failed to deliver.”
Xavier said corruption will be on the rise for as long as there is an unstable government in power, and thanked Anwar “for his efforts in trying to bring about change”.
“We should all be in support of him (Anwar),” he said.