Sarawak PRK chief Baru Bian is confident the final list of Pakatan Rakyat candidates for the coming state election will be resolved by Tuesday.

"Yes, I am 100 per cent confident," he told reporters today when commenting on reports that the DAP-PKR negotiations on overlapping claims for seats to contest had broken down.

"So, you just wait for the leaderships of the two parties to announce the decision by March 29," he told a press conference.

Both PKR and DAP want to contest the Batu Kawah, Piasau and Dudong seats. In the second round of negotiations last year, the DAP agreed to let PKR contest in Padungan and Senadin.

Baru said PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim, who will be in Kuching on March 29, is expected to make the announcement on seat allocations between the two parties.

"Everything should have been resolved before this date," he said, adding that both Anwar and DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang were working hard to finalise the list of Pakatan candidates.

Incorrect to say PKR, DAP cannot work together

Any question of PKR and DAP not being able to work together, he said, was not correct.

The two parties, he said, had their strong grounds for the seats they wanted to contest in and if they could not agree on one or two seats, it did not mean that they could not work together.

"It is also the desire of the people of Sarawak that we work together. So, let us leave it to the wisdom of our leaders to complete the negotiations," he said, explaining that talks at the Sarawak level had failed to reach any agreement on seat allocations.

Baru also welcomed Sarawak DAP chairman Wong Ho Leng's assurance that the door to negotiations was still open.

NONE Wong, at a separate press conference, said he wanted PKR to approach him for another round of negotiations before he issued letters of authorisation for the use of the DAP symbol to the party's candidates on April 4.

From the beginning, he said, Pakatan had taken the stand that the party with the best chance of winning any of the 71 seats in the Sarawak legislative assembly will contest in those seats.

Wong added: "On that premise, the DAP resolved to contest 18 seats only. We conceded two seats to PKR after two rounds of seat negotiations last year, with a view to finalising seat allocations yesterday.

"We agreed to let PKR have Padungan and Senadin, although it is generally accepted that DAP has the best chance to win in its heartland of Padungan.

'Presumption will result in misjudgment'

"However, PKR also wanted Batu Kawah, Balai Ringin, Dudong and Piasau. It works on the presumption it has a better chance of winning, but the statistics are against PKR.

"The PKR negotiation team relied on feedback from members in the state, many of whom want to contest for the sake of contesting.

"Presumption will always result in misjudgment. The Sarawak DAP came to the negotiation table with absolute sincerity."

He said Balai Ringin was not even on the negotiation table yesterday and with DAP having conceded Padungan and Senadin to PKR, it meant that the strongest opposition party in Sarawak now had only 15 seats to contest.

"Yet PKR wants three other Chinese-majority seats. This is not acceptable. Time is running short and PKR may well play into the hands of the BN by insisting on playing big brother to DAP and Snap, when equality of partnership ought to have been the key.

"The ball is now in PKR's court as to whether it wants three-cornered contests, for this will benefit the BN," Wong added.