KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 15): The Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition has honoured the core issues underlined in its 14th general election manifesto despite having to reconsider some of the promises, said its de-facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim. 

The newly sworn in member of Parliament for Port Dickson also voiced his agreement on the stance of Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad that certain constraints have hindered some election promises from being fulfilled. 

“To me, the core issues decided by PH has been honoured,” he told reporters at the Parliament lobby today.

He cited examples like governance, corruption, as well as the no-compromise stance on fund leakages and abuse of power. 

Last Friday, Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said it was not possible to have highways without the collection of toll, which was one of the pledges in the PH election manifesto.

“I think Tun Mahathir is right to say some of these issues need to be re-hashed or relooked upon,”  said Anwar. “The stark reality… we do reconsider [as it involves] the financial constraints [of the nation], the present economic reality, and the global trading arrangements.”

Anwar also said that the people still support the government of the day despite these shortcomings, based on the by-election result in Port Dickson on Saturday where he beat six other candidates as a PH representative.

On Saturday, Anwar won with a historical 23,560 majority against PAS candidate Mohd Nazari Mokhtar, as well as Umno strongman-turned-independent candidate Tan Sri Isa Samad, who was previously the Negeri Sembilan menteri besar.

“If you say that the people fail to support, that is not truly correct because these problems are also faced by the people of Port Dickson,” Anwar said.

“They understand and they did respond to some of these concerns by prime minister and members of the Cabinet, but finally when it came to the crunch, they made the right decision.”