GE15 may be Anwar's last as PKR president, says Fahmi

Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim. -filepic

PETALING JAYA: PKR has made plans for life after Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim steps down, says Fahmi Fadzil.

The party communications director said that Anwar had laid out his succession plan before the leadership during a party retreat in February before the Johor elections.

"He had said 'this is how things are, this is what is going to happen'.

"It is not my place to say, but there is an understanding.

"It's not like Anwar wants to be there, but from my reading of the situation, we have this mission that we need to do. We have this agenda, this reform agenda that we need to execute," he told Free Malaysia Today in an interview recently.

Asked for a timeframe for the execution of the succession plan, the Lembah Pantai MP said, “Let’s say one election cycle”.

He added that Anwar was “quite firm” on the matter, though he did not reveal further details of the succession plan, including who would eventually take over from the former deputy prime minister.

Meanwhile, Fahmi said Anwar had been affected by the retirements and deaths of his comrades.

“When you look at, say, Lim Kit Siang retiring, Tengku Razaleigh (Hamzah) retiring, people like Nazri Aziz saying he will not seek re-election, of course people in the same cohort will start to feel (the same way) and it’s not just political retirement, some people pass away,” Fahmi said.

He said Anwar had suffered a succession of personal losses, such as the death of Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement (Abim) former president Siddiq Fadzil, and Anwar’s younger brother Rusli Ibrahim.

Fahmi said he believed that Anwar was still the right man to lead PKR and Pakatan Harapan into the coming general election.

On April 12, Anwar managed to retain the PKR president position from 2022 to 2024 unopposed in the party polls.

The 75-year-old Anwar also won the PKR presidency unopposed in the party’s polls for the 2018-2021 term in November 2018.

Anwar’s daughter Nurul Izzah said she would not contest in the upcoming PKR party polls because she wanted to focus on reaching out to Malaysians who were disenchanted and fatigued with politics ahead of the upcoming general election.

The former PKR vice-president said she would be working on the Ayuh Malaysia campaign that was also co-founded by party stalwart Rafizi Ramli and herself to entice fence-sitter voters.

Nurul Izzah was one of the four vice-presidents who were elected following the PKR congress in November 2018.

Barely a month after the congress concluded, on Dec 17, Nurul Izzah announced her resignation as PKR vice-president and the party's Penang chapter chief.