MELAKA: Former Melaka DAP chairman Damian Yeo says he will quit the party and politics rather than accept an electoral pact between Pakatan Harapan and Bersatu for the upcoming state election.
Describing the purported arrangement as a betrayal, the former Duyong assemblyman said he would stay away from Pakatan's candidate announcement for Melaka polls at Stadium Hang Jebat in Krubong on Saturday night (Oct 24).
Yeo said he had made his opposition to any cooperation with Bersatu clear to Melaka DAP chairman Khoo Poay Tiong last week.
"I told him I did not want a pact with Bersatu, and now I hear there is an alliance.
"I would rather work with a known enemy than a friend who previously stabbed me in the back," he said when contacted on Saturday (Oct 24).
Yeo said he had no objection to Pakatan working with Barisan Nasional, given their partnership in the Federal Government and the earlier cooperation at state level.
However, he drew the line at the proposed "PH-Plus" arrangement involving Bersatu, which he accused of betraying Pakatan in 2020.
"I am against this PH-Plus arrangement," he said adding that he would quit the party and focus on his own work if the arrangement came about.
Yeo said Bersatu's role in the collapse of the Pakatan state government in 2020, which saw Adly Zahari ousted as Melaka Chief Minister, remained unforgivable to him.
"The wound from being stabbed in the back is still fresh. There is no forgiveness for them," he said.
The lawyer said his decision to leave politics was a matter of principle following the latest development.
His remarks came less than a month after Khoo ruled out an electoral alliance with Bersatu and said Pakatan would retain its existing partners for the Melaka polls.
"There will be no external political parties joining the coalition during the Melaka polls.
"We will maintain the current partners in Pakatan," Khoo was quoted as saying on Sept 30.
Khoo, who is also Melaka Pakatan deputy chairman, was speaking at a press conference over the maintenance cost of the Tun Teja pedestrian bridge outside the Melaka Sentral bus terminal on Sept 30.
He had also played down a Sept 28 dinner attended by Pakatan representatives and Bersatu leaders at a hotel in Jalan Hang Tuah, saying they had accepted Bersatu's invitation as a courtesy.
"It is Malaysian culture to attend an event when invited, and nothing more than that," he was quoted as saying.
Yeo took over as Melaka DAP chairman in 2021 following Tey Kok Kiew's resignation, before stepping down in 2023.
He won Duyong with a majority of 2,895 votes in 2018 but lost the seat to Barisan's Mohd Noor Helmy Abdul Halem by just 200 votes in the 2021 state election.
