They said the PKR president is only likely to receive the backing of 96 MPs at the most and that the “deadline” for GPS to agree to support Anwar “has already ended”.

A joint statement by Amanah communications director Khalid Samad and DAP organising secretary Loke Siew Fook said choosing Mahathir as the prime ministerial candidate was a second option that had already been discussed and agreed upon during a PH Presidential Council meeting on May 30 chaired by Anwar himself.

They said the meeting decided to name Mahathir as prime minister with Anwar as the deputy if Anwar could not achieve majority support that would return PH to power.

Earlier today, PKR’s central leadership council said the party would not support Mahathir as PH’s candidate for prime minister.

It said PKR would stick to the “PH consensus” for Anwar to be the coalition’s candidate if the opposition returned to power.

Khalid and Loke said they were quite “baffled” as backing Mahathir had been accepted as one of PH’s two options in their bid to oust the Perikatan Nasional government.

They said that after “exhausting all efforts”, Anwar was only expected to receive support from a maximum of 96 MPs – 91 from PH (38 from PKR, 42 from DAP and 11 from Amanah) and five from Mahathir and four other MPs removed from PPBM.

“Anwar’s final efforts to garner the support of GPS were also unsuccessful and the deadline for them to agree (to support Anwar) has already ended, and (he had) failed to achieve enough support,” they said.

The two parties hoped that efforts to agree on the second option could continue as was previously agreed upon, adding that “the PN administration is clearly causing damage to the nation’s institutions and finances”.

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