Padungan state assemblyperson Dominique Ng has denied widespread talk that he will not be allowed to defend his seat in the forthcoming Sarawak election.

Rumours have it that PKR will drop him because of his protracted feud with several state DAP leaders.

dominique ng interview 010606 gesturing However Ng, who is Sarawak PKR adviser, said national party leaders have assured him of his candidacy.

“Every national leader who has been asked this question has given the same answer,” he said in Kuching recently.

"It is an iron-clad Pakatan Rakyat policy, where the party that wins a seat gets to defend it. There is no basis (that we will give up Padungan), considering that this is the only seat we have in East Malaysia.”

The speculation is believed to have originated from DAP supporters who are still sore with him for openly supporting an independent candidate in the Sarikei parliamentary seat in the 2008 general election.

In that contest, the DAP candidate lost by a mere 51 votes while the Independent candidate polled more than 500 votes. At the time Ng was the Sarawak PKR chief and seat negotiations with DAP had broken down.

‘Ng’s chances affected’

Ng’s bitter rival Chong Chieng Jen confirmed that the negotiation team was looking into possibilities of requesting PKR to make way for DAP in Padungan.

DAP’s point of view, he said, was that Ng’s actions in Sarikei had deeply antagonised the party's supporters in Padungan, where DAP has been winning a respectable number of votes.

chong chieng jen interview 141108 01 “They feel betrayed and cannot forgive him. Given the history, we feel that his chances of wining in Padungan will be affected,” Chong ( left ) told Malaysiakini .

Ng quit DAP in 1998 but continued to stake a claim to the Padungan seat, contesting there several times, even as an independent. He finally won the seat in 2006 on a PKR ticketm after an uneasy truce was struck with DAP.

Neither Chong nor Ng are part of the seat negotiation team, for obvious reasons.

PKR, which is in seat allocation talks with DAP, had urged the latter to make way in a handful of Chinese-majority seats because PKR feels the need to contest in a broad spectrum of seats.

They are scheduled to conclude their negotiations by March 20.