By AFIQ AZIZ / Pic By AFIF ABD HALIM

Pakatan Harapan is prepared for any eventuality including efforts to prevent the use of PKR’s logo by its candidates contesting in the 14th General Election (GE14).

Chairman Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said the coalition has formulated a contingency plan that would ensure all of Pakatan Harapan candidates will contest their designated spots in the election which has been scheduled for May 9, 2018.

As it is, he said Pakatan Harapan has already decided that all of its component parties, except for DAP in Sabah and Sarawak, will contest in the election under the single banner of PKR.

“We foresee the possibilities of our candidates not being allowed to contest, and that the Election Commission of Malaysia (EC) would only announce it at the very last minute. We have requested to meet the EC to further explain about the usage of one logo, but we have been denied,” the former prime minister said at a press conference in Petaling Jaya yesterday.

Pakatan Harapan’s registration is pending approval by the Registration of Society (RoS) due to several matters, one of which being the temporary dissolution of Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM) — one of the coalition’s main components.

As a result, Pakatan Harapan is also not allowed to contest under the proposed logo, which led to the decision to use the PKR symbol instead.

“We requested for a meeting with the EC to discuss several issues, including the one logo usage, post-voting and earlyvoting system processes,” Dr Mahathir said.

However, he said the formal request, which was made on the April 11, has been declined.

In its reply to Pakatan Harapan’s request — as read by Dr Mahathir — the EC stated that it “is in the process of finalising all matters pertaining to the general election” and that “the results will be announced later”.

“Political parties shall have to wait until the announcement is made and any follow-up issues can be referred back to the EC for clarification,” the letter read.

Early this month, RoS announced that PPBM was temporarily dissolved due to some failures in providing complete documentation and details as per Section 14(2) Societies Act 1966.

The declaration was made a day before the Parliament was dissolved.

“We would like to emphasise to the EC that although the party is dissolved, each of the candidates should be regarded as a personnel or citizen who has the rights to contest.

“We will contest as independent candidates with a granted permission by PKR to use their logo. I have made this statement before and until now there is no restriction from the EC. In addition, the EC said there is no permission needed from them,” Dr Mahathir said.

He added that the PKR logo was used by other parties and individuals in the past and it was not objected to by the EC.