Kuala Lumpur: The loose three-party opposition alliance that made enormous gains in Malaysia's recent elections is ready to form a formal coalition to pose a stronger challenge to the government, an official said today.

"If we are going to respect the people's wish for change, we have to have some kind of cooperation," opposition leader Lim Kit Siang of the Democratic Action Party told The Associated Press. "We have to try to make it work. If there is a failure, all will suffer from it."

The DAP, a left-leaning ethnic Chinese-based party, is part of the unlikely alliance that won 82 seats in the 222-member Parliament in general elections held March eight, a huge jump from 19 seats the opposition held previously. The other two parties in the alliance are the Malay-based Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, or PAS, and the multiethnic People's Justice Party, or PKR.

Lim said the three parties met Tuesday to discuss forming a formal coalition, but no timeframe was mentioned. He described a possible coalition as a "political experiment."

The three parties joined together for the elections with a common agenda to provide racial equality and a corruption-free administration. The message struck a chord among many Malaysians, who voted across racial lines for the opposition.

Source : PTI