Pakatan Harapan launches Melaka Rumah Kita, aiming to win back its traditional seats

MELAKA: Pakatan Harapan has introduced Melaka Rumah Kita, or Melaka Is Our Home, as the framework for its offer to voters in the 16th Melaka state election.

PH election director Datuk Seri Amirudin Shari said the idea would be built in stages, beginning with the opening of the coalition's main campaign operations room, which he described as the first pillar of a larger structure.

"I will present it over the period leading to the campaign and polling day," he said at the opening of the operations room in Bukit Baru on Thursday.

"Melaka is our home, its foundation stone was laid long ago," he said.

Also present were PH Melaka chairman Adly Zahari and DAP Melaka chairman Khoo Poay Tiong.

Targeting traditional seats

Amirudin said the coalition hoped to win back areas that had once been its strongholds.

"God willing, we can take back our traditional areas," he said.

He pointed to DAP's standing in Kota Melaka and Ayer Keroh and the seats nearby, along with seats previously won by PKR and Amanah.

PH would run a campaign built on offers and ideas that voters could assess, he said, rather than on political rhetoric alone.

The coalition was not coming to Melaka with promises built on nothing, he said, because it had governed the state before.

PH led the state government after the 2018 general election under Adly Zahari, before a shift in political alignments ended that administration in 2020.

The timetable and the baseline

The Election Commission has set nomination for Oct 31, early voting for Nov 10 and polling for Nov 14.

In the 2021 state election, Barisan Nasional won 21 of the 28 state assembly seats, PH won five and Perikatan Nasional two.

The detailed contents of PH's manifesto have not been presented. Its offer can only be fully assessed once the policy proposals, delivery targets, costs and candidate list are disclosed.