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GEORGE TOWN (Feb 16, 2010): Faced with mounting criticism over Pakatan Rakyat's candidate choices, its de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has eaten humble pie and apologised for making a string of poor decisions in selecting certain candidates in the last general elections.

Saying he is taking responsibility for the bad calls, a solemn-looking Anwar told a stunned crowd of over 1,000: "I’m sorry… It’s my fault."

"Why do I say sorry?… It’s my fault that certain candidates that I had chosen for the general elections in 2008 were not strong," the Parliamentary Opposition leader and Permatang Pauh MP said at the State PKR Chinese New Year open house at the Rifle Range flats here today.

"From now on, I will make sure that for someone to qualify as a candidate, that person must first be tested, and confirmed fit and capable," he said.

Anwar’s comments were made in the wake of Bayan Baru MP and former Penang PKR chief Datuk Seri Zahrain Mohd Hashim's quitting the party to become an independent.

Zahrain’s departure was the latest among a number of other resignations by PKR elected representatives since March 2008.

Behrang assemblyman Jamaluddin Mohd Radzi and Changkat Jering assemblyman Mohd Osman Jailu also left PKR in Feb last year.

Their decision to become Barisan Nasional-friendly independents helped Barisan Nasional take over the silver state.

Lunas state assemblyman and Kedah executive councillor Mohd Radzhi Salleh also resigned from PKR in August last year. He has since been sacked from the executive councillor's post.

Speculations are now rife that Kulim-Bandar Baharu MP Zulkifli Noordin and Nibong Tebal MP Tan Tee Beng, who have both been critical of the Pakatan Rakyat leadership this year, are next in line to leave PKR.

Anwar in his speech urged the people to support leaders regardless of their racial backgrounds, as long as they were clean and firm in their efforts to serve the masses.

"If (Penang Chief Minister) Lim Guan Eng was weak, he would have been shaken by the recent demonstrations against him," he said. "I am proud that Lim is strong in his stand and continues to fight for the rakyat," he added.

Anwar added that US secretary of state Hilary Clinton and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had met with him recently, and that they were aware of his political situation in Malaysia and his human rights agenda.

He likened Pakatan Rakyat’s fate to a Chinese legend of a monk and his followers in a westward journey to the Indian sub-continent which was fraught with obstacles, but which eventually succeeded.

"Similarly, Pakatan Rakyat is on a mission with obstacles and hindrances, and the goal is to take over Putrajaya in the coming general elections," he added. -- theSun