KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 17 — Pakatan Harapan (PH) leader Rafizi Ramli urged voters to give Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim a chance at leading the country in a short clip sent out just two days to polling, saying they have nothing to lose by electing a politician with an arguably impressive track record to be prime minister.

In contrast to the prime minister candidates nominated by rivals, the PKR deputy president said voters have yet to taste the full extent of what Anwar can offer as head of the government.

Rafizi, who is contesting for the Pandan seat, then suggested the former two politicians, Barisan Nasional’s (BN) caretaker prime minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob and his predecessor Perikatan Nasional’s (PN) Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, led lacklustre administrations that handled the Covid-19 pandemic poorly and failed to rein in living cost pressure.

"We can already assess the performance of BN and PN’s prime minister nominees because they were the prime ministers in the era of prolonged public suffering,” the PH leader said.

"For the 33 months they were prime ministers we had to undergo the movement control order, a price crisis to the extent that even prices of eggs and chicken soared,” he added.

Living cost pressure, while mostly the result of geopolitical tension and a protracted supply chain bottleneck, is a key election issue. Rafizi alleged 80 per cent of Malaysians are dissatisfied with the state of the economy as a result.

Yesterday, Rafizi said if elected, the PH government would "restructure” the economy in a bid to raise wages.

"Only Anwar hasn’t been given the chance to lead. He has an impressive prior track record but he was feared by people in politics because of his firm stance against corruption,” the PKR deputy president said.

"But we will only know if we give him the opportunity to be prime minister. As the saying goes: tak kenal maka tak cinta (to not know one cannot love). If we haven’t tried then how are we to know his capability to govern?”

With voting just two days away, several polls have put the coalition as favourite to win the most seats. But none definitively predicted PH would secure the 112 seats needed to form a government by simple majority. Still, coalition leaders appeared buoyed by the positive findings.