KUALA LUMPUR, March 2 — Pejuang’s international affairs bureau chief Tariq Ismail Mustafa today said that the party is not Malay supremacist in nature, playing up its centrist values and keenness to work with other races in the country. 

In an interview with Free Malaysia Today, Tariq — who is also Pejuang’s Sedili seat candidate at the Johor state election — said that the party was more centrist than other Malay parties. 

He also hopes that the party wins enough seats at the state polls to form a third bloc and have an say in the formation of Johor’s state government. 

"Yes, you can say we’re splitting Malay votes, but what Pejuang is trying to show is we are not taking sides,” he said.

"Even though we subscribe to Malay nationalism, we’re not at all about Malay supremacy and all the racial rhetoric. We want to show that Malays are accommodating and that we can work with other races,” he told FMT. 

Tariq then forecasted that Perikatan Nasional (PN) would suffer heavy losses at the state election, citing that its main component party, Bersatu, was "split on all sides” with members jumping ship to Pejuang, PKR and Muda.

He, however, noted that Bersatu have strengths in several Johor assemblymen who joined them from Umno, but said that it would be difficult for them to retain their seats as it was the Barisan Nasional (BN) machinery that helped them win in the 2018 election. 

On his focus should he win the Sedili seat, Tariq told FMT that Johoreans are jaded with the current political landscape, hence he would focus his energies on the economy and healthcare sector. 

Tariq is in a four-cornered fight with BN’s Muszaide Makmur, PN’s Hasnolhadi Mohd Sebalas and Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) Mat Khairi Samsudin. 

BN won the seat with a 9,168-vote majority in 2018. 

The EC has set March 12 as polling date for the Johor state election with early voting on March 8.

Johor has 56 state constituencies, with more than 2.59 million voters who are eligible to cast their ballots in this state election. The EC is targeting a 70 per cent voter turnout.