‘Betrayed’ but PSM still needs Pakatan

SHAH ALAM: Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM), though “bullied” and “betrayed” by its Pakatan Rakyat friends, still needs to work with Pakatan to win elections, PSM chairman Dr Nasir Hashim said.

He said the left-wing political party shares a common goal with the opposition coalition and that is to bring down the Barisan Nasional (BN) government through the democratic process.

“We need Pakatan as much as PKR or PAS or DAP needs Pakatan,” he said in an interview with theantdaily.

He strongly believes that all the opposition parties must work together to advance their common objective.

However, Nasir, the former Kota Damansara state assemblyman, stressed that PSM has always been independent in its stand.

PSM's relationship with its Pakatan partners has been growing frosty in the aftermath of the 13th general election.

Although discussions are still ongoing about PSM joining the coalition, the talks are going nowhere.

The May polls especially left a bitter taste in PSM's mouth.

Nasir recalled that PSM faced a lot of problems during the GE13 because of the betrayal of its own “friends”.

“The problem is we did not see them (Pakatan allies) as the main enemy. We were focusing on BN as our main enemy," he said.

"We tried to reach a compromise (on meeting the needs of the rakyat and on gaining Pakatan’s much-needed support to win) with the hope that we could all unite.

“(But) we were trampled on, bullied, promises made to us were broken, and tackling our problems took a back seat as everyone was concerned with their own (political) well-being,” he said.

PSM ran into seat allocation problems with its Pakatan partners well past nomination day in GE13.

The Pakatan partners fielded candidates in three out of four seats that PSM contested, leading to multi-cornered fights.

Besides, the socialist party was not permitted to use its white fist logo in two constituencies.

Although the candidacy of Nasir for the Kota Damansara seat under the PKR banner was finally ironed out, the PAS candidate continued to run against him, causing both to lose.

“... the Kota Damansara seat was given to Umno on a silver platter,” Nasir said, adding that the same story of sabotage happened in Semenyih.