Gerakan charting out focus seats for GE16, says Lau

JOHOR BARU: The Pulai and Simpang Jeram by-elections have not concluded yet but Gerakan is already planning for the 16th General Election (GE16).

The party's president Datuk Dr Dominic Lau, who chaired its central committee meeting here on Saturday (Sept 9), said the party would be looking at a few focus seats to tackle in the GE16.

"Our focus will be on seats where we have contested before and lost with a majority of less than 1,000 votes.

"This includes mixed seats as I think that this is our strength so the work starts now to engage with the people, especially the non-Muslim communities," he told reporters after the meeting at the party’s office in Taman Jaya, Skudai here on Saturday (Sept 9).

Polling for the Pulai parliamentary and Simpang Jeram state seat, left vacant following the passing of domestic trade and cost of living minister Datuk Seri Salahuddin Ayub, will end at 6pm on Saturday.

Lau also said that his party had been "misunderstood" by the non-Malay communities.

"From our post mortem in the past state elections and GE15, we found that Pakatan Harapan and DAP were good at convincing the Chinese and Indians.

"This is to the extent that the communities think that if they vote for Perikatan Nasional, they cannot drink alcohol or consume pork but this is not true - just look at Kelantan and Terengganu, there are no obstructions for the non-Muslims to do those things," he said.

Asked about Gerakan’s role in Perikatan and whether it was redundant as its component parties Bersatu also had an associate wing for the non-Malays and PAS has a supporters’ congress (DHPP) for non-Muslims, Lau said each of the parties had its own strengths and weaknesses.

"There is no clash between us and our relationship is good.

"We each have our own roles to play. Take the recent incident of a woman getting fined for wearing shorts, for example.

"Gerakan can voice out against the issue but at the same time, DHPP can also voice out about it within PAS to get the message across faster to resolve the issue.

"I believe that we complement each other as our main objective is to lead Perikatan to victory," he said.

Lau added that the party has appointed Loh Kah Yong, who was defeated by Salahuddin in Pulai in GE15, as its secretary-general.

It also formed several taskforce committees and bureaus to take care of matters related to fundraising, non-governmental organisations, education, public complaints and recruiting new members.

Lau said the party currently has about 300,000 members in 174 divisions and 1,818 branches nationwide