KUALA LUMPUR – Former federal minister Waytha Moorthy Ponnusamy has announced that his political outfit, the Malaysian Advancement Party (MAP), is throwing its support behind Barisan Nasional (BN) for the upcoming 15th general election (GE15).
The MAP president, who is better known as a leader of the Hindraf human rights movement, said the decision was made as rival coalition Pakatan Harapan (PH) had not responded to MAP’s request to join its fold.
Speaking in a video uploaded on his Facebook account late last night, he said BN is willing to cooperate with the party to help the Indian community.
“I’ve been waiting for Pakatan Harapan to respond to my request to join their coalition,” he said, speaking in Tamil.
“Pakatan Harapan has been silent about my request. So, I take it that (Datuk Seri) Anwar Ibrahim does not want cooperation,” he added, referring to the PH chairman.
Waytha said that he thus moved on and is now backing BN.
He added that he had discussed the matter with BN chairman Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and other coalition leaders.
“As we are a minority community, we should join with the party which is willing to support and cooperate with plans for (the uplifting of) the Indian community,” he said.
On October 11, DAP secretary-general Anthony Loke had said that PH had never received MAP’s application to join the coalition.
“As far as I’m concerned, (MAP’s submission) is unheard of,” he told reporters after a DAP central executive committee meeting.
Waytha was appointed as the minister in the Prime Minister’s Department for unity and social well-being under the PH federal government led by then prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad from May 2018 to February 2020.
In his video message last night, Waytha said that he had aided PH’s election campaign in 2018 and had helped the Indian community a lot when he was minister. – The Vibes, October 27, 2022
