Muda president Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman said his party shared commonalities with PSM and described the latter as having leaders whose “hearts are in the right place”.

“Where we can collaborate, we should collaborate. We have already been communicating and we’ve agreed to a meeting.

“We look forward to exploring different areas of collaboration,” he said at a press conference today.

Syed Saddiq, who is Muar MP, also announced that Muda had opened its application for candidates for the elections in six states today.

He said applicants do not have to be Muda members and that there is no age limit for them. He added that the party wants 50% of its candidates for the state elections to be women.

“The party will also go around and look for potential candidates,” he said. “All we want is a ‘people’s candidate’.”

He also said Muda is only aiming to win a few seats rather than form any of the state governments, so it can act as an effective check and balance on the state administrations.

He was responding to former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who had said Muda should strive to form the state administration rather than just securing a few seats at the polls.

Meanwhile, Syed Saddiq urged all candidates contesting in the state polls to declare their assets, taking aim at ministers in the federal government for not doing so after taking on Cabinet posts.

On Monday, Muda said it will contest in the forthcoming elections in six states on its own.

This means the party will clash with Pakatan Harapan and Barisan Nasional in the state polls, despite being a part of the government bloc in the Dewan Rakyat.