Emergence of Pakatan Rakyat (People's Pact)

It's official. It's historical. Opposition forms coalition
Malaysian Insider - April 1 2008

It's been floating around for some time now and Anwar Ibrahim has spoken about it to various media, but today it is official, he announced at a news conference that Malaysia's opposition parties have agreed to enter into a formal coalition, called Pakatan Rakyat (People's Pact).

The de facto leader of the opposition, whose wife Dr Wan Azizah will be the formal Leader of the Opposition in parliament, said the move to have a formal coalition is to present the parties as a credible alternative to the present ruling government coalition, Barisan Nasional.

A convention of all Pakatan Rakyat elected representatives of Parliament and State Assemblies will be held the 27th of April, 2008

This ushers in the era of a two-party system into Malaysian politics for the first time in its history.

The PKR-PAS-DAP group has proposed strengthening ties by forming Pakatan Rakyat, pending the agreement of the respective parties, said Anwar.

He dismissed the long-held position of Parti Islam SeMalaysia, or PAS, on making Malaysia an Islamic state as non-issue. Malaysia's opposition has been divided for many years on separate philosophies, with two parties , PKR and DAP appealing mainly to urban, liberal voters and Islamist PAS attracting mainly rural votes.

The 3 parties have tried before to form a coalition with a single policy platform, during an election campaign in 1999, calling themselves the Barisan Alternatif. But the pact fell apart two years later over the issue PAS's call for the creation of an Islamic state.

Anwar said the parties were still working on a common policy platform, and detailed policy steps would be hammered out at a meeting of parliamentary and state assembly deputies of all 3 parties on April 27. He insisted that PAS's stand on an Islamic state would not sink the new alliance.

...more