Taking inspiration from France's Macron, Syed Saddiq confirms youth party

Muar MP Syed Saddiq Abdul Rahman has finally confirmed he will be setting up a youth-based party.

Syed Saddiq's circle have been hinting this after he was the only former Bersatu MP aligned to former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad who did not join the latter's new party Parti Pejuang Tanah Air (Pejuang).

Syed Saddiq, while campaigning for Pejuang's candidate in the Slim by-election, confirmed that he won't join Mahathir's Malay-based party and will instead set up a multiracial youth party.

"If in Thailand they could set up Future Forward and in France, they can set up En Marche under Macron, I think it is timely in Malaysia, to start a movement of young people - young technocrats, professionals - young politicians from different backgrounds to come together to ensure the youth's voice will dominate in and outside of Parliament.

"In the end, the youths can never ever be taken lightly anymore. It is timely today that politics will never be chained by the same people - being controlled and monopolised by the same old people," he was quoted as saying by Channel News Asia.

The 27-year-old former minister had set himself on a different path after he publicly declared on July 7 that he would no longer be challenging his dismissal from Bersatu. He was the Bersatu Youth chief.

Bersatu had sacked Mahathir and his allies from the party he founded for opposing party president Muhyiddin Yassin, who withdrew Bersatu from Pakatan Harapan and led to the collapse of the Harapan government.

Muhyiddin's Bersatu later joined forces with a group of PKR defectors as well as BN, PAS, GPS, PBS and Star to form the new PN government in March.

Mahathir and his allies had proceeded with a suit to challenge their sacking but were unsuccessful, leading them to set up Pejuang.

Syed Saddiq was noticeably absent at Mahathir's unveiling of Pejuang, although he remains friendly to the party.

Following his absence, sources told Malaysiakini that Syed Saddiq had touched base with Liga Rakyat Demokratik, a youth movement that counts youth activists such as Adam Adli Abd Halim, Amir Abd Hadi, Safwan Anang, Dobby Chew and Azira Aziz among its leadership.

The movement had previously mulled becoming a youth-based political party but had yet to take the leap.

Syed Saddiq's inspiration, La République En Marche!, was set up in 2016 as a platform for Emmanuel Macron to contest in the 2017 French presidential election.

Macron went on to become president and his party took majority control of the French National Assembly the same year.

The Future Forward Party was set up in 2018 ahead of the 2019 Thai legislative election to challenge the military's power, which had in 2014 launched a coup against the civilian government. It was the first general election after the coup.

Future Forward did better than expected, coming in third behind Phuen Thai, the reincarnation of former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's party and the military-backed Phalang Pracharat.

The one-year-old party won 81 seats to Pheu Thai's 136 seats and Phalang Pracharat's 116 seats in the 500-member House of Representatives.

However, it was disbanded by the Thai constitutional court in February, amid claims of politically-motivated action against the party. - Mkini

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