DAP chairman Lim Kit Siang said he would retire from politics if that was the wish of the party.

Lim was responding to Perak DAP deputy chairman Fan Yew Teng's statement in The Star today that Lim and deputy chairman Karpal Singh should resign from their posts following the party's humiliating defeat in the last general elections.

"I will not cling to any party position if the party leadership or rank-and-file agrees with Fan Yew Teng that I should retire from politics," he said.

Fan had argued that the two leaders were responsible for DAP's poor performance since they had strongly advocated for the party to enter into a pact with PAS under the Barisan Alternatif, a move he considered a mistake.

Lim said that while he respected Fan's views, he believed that the DAP's decision to work with PAS in the BA was "correct, proper, honourable and noble".

"This is because no opposition party, whether DAP, PAS, or KeADILan on its own could break the Barisan Nasional's two-thirds parliamentary majority, but collectively, the BA stood a chance of achieving this political breakthrough by securing 70 to 75 parliamentary seats," he added.

He pointed out that it was not only him and Karpal who made the decision to cooperate with PAS.

"The DAP National Congress adopted a unanimous resolution in Kuala Lumpur on Sept 9 and endorsed the cooperation of DAP with other opposition parties to break the BN political hegemony to restore justice, freedom, democracy and good governance," Lim said.

Lim added that Fan himself had supported the resolution.

"I confirm, however, that Fan had twice advocated at party brainstorming sessions that the DAP break with PAS and pull out of the BA, but he did not repeat his call at the final DAP General Election National Congress on Nov 14," he said.

DAP MP for Seputeh Teresa Kok expressed her disappointment with Fan when contacted by malaysiakini. She agreed that the DAP's alliance with PAS was a party decision.

"Fan's accusation is not true. The decision to cooperate with PAS was a collective decision of the central committee and not solely the party's two leaders," she said.

She added that the cooperation between DAP and PAS was the best opportunity to break the racial barrier in the country, particularly that between the Malays and Chinese.

"Although DAP suffered a serious setback, we managed to win over a huge number of Malay voters who once regarded the DAP as Chinese-oriented," said Kok.

According to Lim, despite the growing criticism of DAP's pact with PAS, the party would continue to be part of the BA coalition "unless PAS makes such an opposition cooperation completely untenable because of disrespect and insensitivities of the PAS state governments of Kelantan and Terengganu to the rights and sensitivities of the diverse races and religions in Malaysia."

Fan, a former DAP MP who left the party in the 80s and rejoined it last year, is the most prominent leader yet to openly call for Lim's resignation. Efforts to contact Fan by malaysiakini at his home in Ipoh were unsuccessful.