Whether or not Pakatan Rakyat stays in power forever should it win the next general election is not for the coalition to decide, but for the voters at the ballot box, said DAP.

DAP’s parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang was responding to former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s claim that Pakatan "would do everything possible to stay in power forever".

NONE Lim ( right ) in a statement today called Mahathir’s claim “utter nonsense”.

“Firstly, there are substantial numbers of Malaysians who will not regard the prospect of the  country never seeing again a Barisan Nasional government as a national catastrophe or disaster (for its abuses)...

“But whether the BN government will become history, never again to be entrusted with the responsibility to govern the country, will be a decision to be made by Malaysians through the ballot box and not to be decided by the Pakatan Rakyat,” he said.

He stressed that should the opposition coalition win power, they would be more than willing to graciously accept defeat at a future general election should voters want BN back in power, and asked if Umno was willing to make the same commitment.

NONE “I challenge Najib and Mahathir ( left ) to make a similar public commitment that Umno will peacefully effect transition of federal power in Putrajaya if this is the electoral verdict of Malaysians in the 13th general election?

“It has not escaped public notice that Najib and Mahathir have been conspicuously silent on this point,” said Lim.

Mahathir yesterday claimed that once Pakatan gets into power, they would “do all they can not to allow a return to BN.”

Slamming the former PM for “indulging his favourite past time of fearmongering with both immunity and impunity”, Lim quipped that Mahathir’s speeches were “confirming growing perceptions of Malaysians that he is ‘back in the saddle’ as de facto prime minister”.