Pakatan to wrap up seat talks this week
Having launching its election manifesto today, Pakatan Rakyat expects to conclude seat negotiation process later this week.
Having launching its election manifesto today, Pakatan Rakyat expects to conclude seat negotiation process later this week.
“Our next meeting will be on Wednesday and we will try to conclude the entire process this week because we anticipate that the prime minister will dissolve Parliament any time soon,” said PKR deputy president Azmin Ali
(left)
.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Pakatan convention, he said overlapping claims remain for only 2 percent of the parliamentary seats that component parties want to contest.
He said this includes seats in Sabah and Sarawak.
“I can say that (the overlap involves) very, very few seats - one in Perak, two in Pahang, three or four seats in Johor,” he said.
SAPP no longer involved
Azmin said Pakatan has decided to stop talks with SAPP, as the Sabah-based party's demands are “not reasonable at all”.
“We had talked with the SAPP leadership, including its president Yong Teck Lee
(left)
, but he insisted that SAPP should contest 40 of the 60 state seats. So we (felt) we could not go on with the negotiations because time is short.
“But we will continue talk with Pakatan-friendly parties, PPPS (Pertubuhan Pakatan Perubahan Sabah) and APS (Angkatan Perubahan Sabah).”
Confirming this, DAP organising secretary Anthony Loke
(right)
said the overlap only involves three parliamentary seats in which the party has an interest.
“We have less than 10 overlapping parliamentary and state seats with our allies, including three parliamentary seats in Johor, Pahang and Kedah,” he said.
He said he believes Pakatan will be able to conclude negotiations within two weeks.
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