KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 20): DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang has called for the forming of a coalition with a two-thirds majority with power to amend the Constitution, hours after the Election Commission confirmed that no party has won a simple majority on its own to form the next Government.

“Malaysia is in a new era of coalition politics — I advocate a coalition government of PH (82), PN (73), and the Borneo bloc (35) under Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim as the prime minister to form a coalition with a specific programme to reverse Malaysia’s decline, and to make Malaysia a great world-class nation, and to fight corruption,” Lim said in a statement on Sunday (Nov 20) after the 15th general election (GE15) resulted in a "hung Parliament".

“This 'Make Malaysia great again' coalition will have 190 Members of Parliament, which is more than two-thirds of the 222 parliamentary seats that can amend the Malaysian Constitution to restore to Sarawak and Sabah their rights according to the Malaysia Agreement 1963,” he added.

Lim also called for the resignation of Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi as Umno's president as well as the chairman of the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition.

“Umno-BN has suffered the worst defeat in its history, and Zahid should resign [for the party to] return to the original Umno nation-building principles as advocated by the first four Umno presidents, Datuk Onn Jaafar, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Abdul Razak Hussein and Tun Hussein Onn,” Lim said, noting that he started his political journey “57 years ago in the days of Umno hegemony when a crack became a national crisis”.

On veteran politicians, he said: “I had advised Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah to play advisory roles, and not to be candidates in the GE15. If they had listened, they would have avoided the ignominy yesterday.”

Mahathir, who served twice as the country’s prime minister, suffered his first defeat in parliamentary elections since 1969 on Saturday, when he failed to defend his Langkawi parliamentary seat by a significant margin.

Umno veteran Tengku Razaleigh, the country’s longest serving MP, lost the Gua Musang seat by only 163 votes after serving for 12 terms.

Get our comprehensive GE15 coverage here.