Pakatan Harapan's reliance on former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad to address rural Malays is a testament of the coalition's failure to do so itself, Parti Sosialis Malaysia veteran Dr Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj says.

Speaking at a forum on Mahathir's role in Harapan last night, Jeyakumar said Harapan had only itself to blame for having to rely on Mahathir, who has a chequered history and once an enemy of many Harapan leaders, to lead the current opposition coalition.

"(At present, Harapan only talks of) 1MDB, the ring... all these urban issues. That is why it is forced to bring Mahathir in.

"The decision to bring Mahathir in is because earlier on, for five years, the opposition has failed to deal with the concerns of the rural folk," Jeyakumar said...