KUALA LUMPUR, March 12 — Parti Pejuang Tanahair’s application to join Perikatan Nasional (PN) is still being considered, its chairman Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said today.
The Pagoh MP said the federal opposition coalition needed more time to discuss the matter and has yet to do so.
“We haven’t brought this to the party’s supreme council. We have a schedule of meetings and this will be debated one of these days so let’s wait for the decision and announcement,” he told reporters after Bersatu’s annual general meeting.
On March 2, Pejuang applied to join PN as a component party.
Party president Datuk Seri Mukhriz Mahathir said he had made the request to PN following Pejuang’s executive council meeting.
The request comes after former Pejuang chairman Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and 12 others quit the party after it cut ties with the Gerakan Tanah Air (GTA) coalition.
Dr Mahathir formed GTA late last year, amid speculation of an early general election, to bring together Pejuang, two minor Malay-based parties and Malay professionals. He founded Pejuang in 2020 after quitting Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia.
He stepped down as Pejuang chairman on December 16, 2020 after all 125 GTA candidates including him and Mukhriz lost their seats at the 15th general elections but stayed on as GTA chairman.
Then on February 25, 2023, Dr Mahathir said he had joined Parti Bumiputera Perkasa Malaysia (Putra) which was formed by Malay supremacist group Perkasa’s president Datuk Ibrahim Ali.
Dr Mahathir had last week said Putra president Ibrahim made the offer for him to join the four-year-old party after the party’s Supreme Council decided on the matter at its meeting.
