KUALA LUMPUR, March 19 — Gerakan still fully supports Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s leadership as Perikatan Nasional (PN) chairman even though the coalition failed to secure a huge win in the recent Johor state election, says its president Datuk Dr Dominic Lou Hoe Chai.
He said the party would not give up and would continue to fight for the people with PN in the next state election or 15th General Election (GE15).
“Even though we did not win big in the Johor state election, only three seats, we understand and we will not give up. We will continue to fight for the party’s ideology to face GE15.
“The defeat was not due to just one person’s leadership. Gerakan is still with PN. We will continue to give our full support to Muhyiddin as the PN chairman,” he said at a press conference after the party’s Central Committee meeting, today.
Dominic was commenting on Muhyiddin’s statement made on March 12 that he accepted responsibility for the coalition’s defeat in the Johor state polls, adding that he was willing to resign if that was what the coalition’s leadership wanted.
PN only managed to secure three seats out of 56 state legislative assembly seats contested in the Johor state polls namely in Bukit Kepong, Endau and Maharani.
Meanwhile, Dominic said Gerakan would ensure that the list of coordinators and candidates in the next state poll and GE15 was released earlier to facilitate the mobilisation of the party machinery.
He admitted that during the Johor polls, no preparation was made to support candidates in some of the state assembly seats they were contesting.
“Therefore, from now on we will list all the seats that (we) are contesting and the coordinators involved to prepare for GE15 and the next state election. So, we hope our machinery will make early preparations,” he said.
According to him, GE15 can only be held when the number of COVID-19 cases decreases and is under control, to ensure that voters’ turnout will be at a satisfactory level of 70 to 80 per cent.
