Don't run, come and face Azmin, PN tells Anwar

Perikatan Nasional (PN) has urged PKR president Anwar Ibrahim to make good on his remarks on contesting a seat held by a "PKR traitor" at the upcoming election, attributing his apparent about-turn on the issue to a fear of rejection by the Malay voters. 

Mansor Othman, the executive secretary of PN's election department, said Anwar had "changed his tune completely" after Mohamed Azmin Ali said challenges were welcome in his Gombak parliamentary seat.

"The real reason why Anwar is afraid of contesting against Azmin in Gombak is obvious.

"Gombak has about 75% Malay voters," he said, adding that both Anwar and Pakatan Harapan (PH) had been rejected by this group. 

"To cover his failure to accept Azmin’s bold challenge, on Oct 15, he claimed to have multiple offers to contest in parliamentary seats in Negeri Sembilan, Johor and Penang and is dizzy about where to contest. In short, Azmin called his bluff and Anwar ran."

This comes a day after Azmin criticised representatives whom he said change seats and contest in different constituencies to fulfil their personal interests. 

He said said a leader’s responsibility was to serve the people, not to make parliamentary seats a place to grab power. 

He also said it was inapprioriate to contest in certain areas only in order to topple others. 

Mansor in his statement today said Anwar and PKR had spent their time since the 2020 fall of the PH government "attacking and insulting Azmin and his colleagues instead of explaining what PH will do for the people". 

"Now, when he has the opportunity to finally take on Azmin at the ballot box, Anwar runs away," he added. 

Azmin won the Gombak parliamentary seat on a PKR ticket at GE14, beating the other candidates from Umno and PAS.

At the time, Gombak had 141,112 registered voters, 85.4% of whom turned out to vote. 

The majority — 75.8% — were Malays while Indians represented 10.77% and the Chinese, 10.67%.

Azmin later joined Bersatu where he is currently a member of the Supreme Council. 

His Gombak seat became the subject of speculation after Anwar hinted that he might contest there in GE15.

But MalaysiaNow previously reported that the PKR chief might settle for the Bandar Tun Razak seat instead, with a PKR source saying party strategists were aware that Gombak, a Malay-majority seat in the middle of Kuala Lumpur consisting of both semi-rural and urban voters, was considered Azmin's fort.