He said matters that involved national policies and political decisions vital for the integrity of the coalition must be unanimous before being implemented.

Citing the move by PKR and Amanah to accept party-hoppers to stand as candidates for the coalition in Melaka, Lim said such a rule would have prevented this “blunder”, as shown by the total rejection of the two candidates by the voters.

DAP was openly against PKR’s decision to accept Umno’s former Melaka chief minister Idris Haron as a candidate for the Asahan seat and Amanah’s move to field Nor Azman Hassan in Pantai Kundor. Both lost their seats by big margins.

“PH should never lose the moral high ground of integrity, public service before self and being Malaysian first in a multiracial, multi-lingual, multi-religious and multicultural nation,” he said in a statement today.

Lim said besides this, there were many lessons to be drawn from the Melaka results. However, he felt it was counter-productive to put all the blame on PH head Anwar Ibrahim.

First, he said, there was a need for a change in the mindset by all political leaders.

“Although the PH government should have been the first to explore a new coalition politics mindset in Malaysia, it failed to do so and was mired in the hegemonic mould of the Barisan Nasional (BN).

“The prime minister of a coalition of equals like PH should operate differently from one from BN which is based on Umno’s political hegemony. But this mindset continued in the 22 months when PH was in power,” he said.

The Iskandar Puteri MP said in the BN scenario, the prime minister would decide on everything, subject to the acceptance level of the other component parties.

However, in a coalition of equals, the prime minister would have to consult and secure the agreement of the other component parties before any decision was taken, Lim added.