PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang rejected a report that DAP will contest the most parliamentary seats in the next general election, saying the Islamic party is still the strongest member of the Pakatan Rakyat coalition.

NONE According to a report in Sinar Harian today, the Marang MP also said PAS will contest more parliamentary seats than DAP.

“PAS is the strongest party in Pakatan. We may contest as many as 80 seats, DAP will contest 50 or 60 seats. From this total, they (DAP) may win 40 or 50 seats.

“With such number of seats won, DAP cannot form the government because the party that forms the backbone of Pakatan is PAS, a Malay Islamic party,” he is quoted as saying during a event in Marang yesterday.

Hadi also pointed out that the strength of PAS was reflected in its strong election machinery, which allowed it to contest in areas that could not be contested by other Pakatan component parties.

Hadi was responding to an Utusan Malaysia report yesterday, quoting a blog as claiming that DAP will contest 90 of the 222 parliamentary seats in the next general election, thereby enabling it to appoint its leader as prime minister if Pakatan captures Putrajaya.

NONE DAP has rubbished the report , claiming it is a another fear mongering attempt targeted at Malays.

Elaborating, Hadi revealed that the seat allocation among Pakatan component parties would only be finalised when election date is announced.

However, he said, DAP would not be leading the coalition if Pakatan was given the opportunity to form the federal government in the next general election.

In the 2008 general election, PAS contested in 66 parliamentary seats but only won 23 seats, while the DAP and PKR, which contested 47 and 97 seats, secured 28 and 31 seats respectively.

However, PAS contested and won the most state legislative assembly seats among the three parties at 81, although it was overtaken by DAP, which now holds 83 state seats after the Sarawak election last year.