After its electoral victory in the recently concluded Sarawak polls, DAP has redoubled its efforts to expand into non-Chinese constituencies.

Besides Sarawak, the Chinese-based party has now set its sights on the Malay belt of Kelantan and Terengganu, vying to contest at least one seat in each state.

“We have strong intentions to contest the Bandar state seat in Terengganu. As for Kelantan, we are still identifying the seat,” said DAP deputy national organising secretary Vincent Wu.

“DAP will raise the issue in a future Pakatan Rakyat meeting.”

Wu, who is also DAP director for Kelantan and Terengganu development affairs, said that this is the demand of the party’s grassroots in both states.

“DAP had contested in Kelantan and Terengganu in the 1980s. Now it is time to contest again in the two states in line with the current political landscape,” said Wu in a statement released after he officially opened the annual general meeting of the Gua Musang DAP branch yesterday.

The last time DAP contested in Kelantan and Terengganu was during the 1990 general election when the party fielded a candidate for the Padang Garong state seat under the Kota Bharu parliamentary constituency.

Wu added that the Umno-controlled media has been demonising DAP as a Chinese-dominated party.

“Therefore, to show that DAP is a multi-racial party, aside from recruiting non-Chinese as members, we will also identify more suitable constituencies through consultation with Pakatan component parties,” he said.

DAP is currently moving aggressively to expand its influence into non-Chinese areas after being tagged as a Chinese chauvinist party when it snared almost all the Chinese-majority seats during the Sarawak polls.

The party, which had won most of the Chinese-majority seats in the country, would hit a bottleneck in the next general election should it fail to penetrate into non-Chinese constituencies.

However its expansion may irk PKR which had contested seats with a significant presence of Chinese voters, including the Bandar state seat in Kuala Terengganu.