KUALA LUMPUR, March 5 – Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leaders believe that the spate of resignations of PKR lawmakers since Election 2008 will not influence seat allocation negotiation at the next general election.
Four PKR assemblymen quit the party last year to become Barisan Nasional (BN) supporters while three federal lawmakers turned independent in recent weeks, raising questions about the party’s bargaining power within the opposition coalition that also consists of DAP and PAS. In Election 2008, the parties arranged to have straight fights with BN after intense negotiations for several seats, finally capturing four more states and 82 parliament seats.
“We have move beyond March 8 to a much higher level of cooperation,” Perak DAP chairman Datuk Ngeh Koo Ham told The Malaysian Insider.
“In the next round we will look at the quality of candidates rather than the quantity of candidates of each individual party,” he added.
“Generally it shall be status quo, unless there is a need to swap seats because of candidate issue, but it will be in a friendly manner, as Pakatan in Perak is one,” said Ngeh.
During the campaign for 12th general election, the Perak DAP and PKR only managed to resolve the seat allocation at the last minute due to intense negotiations over several Chinese majority seats in the Kinta Valley.
The PR state government fell in February 2009 after three assemblymen quit to be “friendly with BN” which then formed the new Perak government. The Bagan Serai MP Mohsin Fadzli Samsuri quit on Wednesday, making him one of three PKR men to quit the Perak PR coalition. The fourth person is from DAP.
The former PKR state assemblymen who turned BN-friendly Osman Jailu and Jamaluddin Radzi both represent Malay-majority constituencies of Changkat Jering and Behrang, traditionally contested by PAS. Mohsin’s Bagan Serai is a traditional PAS seat and was last contested by respected ulama Ahmad Awang in Election 1999 and 2004 but losing both times to Barisan Nasional (BN).
Perak PAS election director Asmuni Awi said while party grassroots may demand for more seats due to the defections, it is too early to say whether it will influence seat allocation as the negotiation is usually concluded close to the general election and based on the individual party’s strength in each constituency.
“It is too early to say so, we have not started any talk on seats, but we decide based on ‘winnability’, there is no point in contesting more seats, without winning them,” Asmuni told The Malaysian Insider.
“The basis of our negotiation is to retain the seats that we won while identifying seats that we can potentially grab,” he added.
In Kelantan, the state PAS election director Abdul Fatah Harun the defections will not stop the party from backing PKR to contest in the state.
PKR is now representing the federal seats of Machang, Tanah Merah and Ketereh and controls one Kelantan state, Guchil, despite not having strong presence in the east coast state.
“We have not discussed this, but it is not unusual to swap seats with PKR, for example PKR contested Kota Bahru in 2004 and PAS took Machang, but in 2008, Machang is given to PKR and PAS took Kota Bahru,” said Fatah.
Political scientist Wong Chin Huat believes that PKR’s bargaining power is not affected as those who have defected do not represent opposition’s safe seats.
“My general impression is that these are marginal seats, so I doubt other parties will fight over these seats,” said Wong referring to the Perak seats.
He added that in the case of Perak defectors they do not represent the constituencies that were the subject of long negotiation between DAP and PKR.
No comments:
Post a Comment