Parti Sosialis Malaysia has always kept its options open to joining the opposition coalition of Pakatan Rakyat, said its secretary-general S Arutchelvan.

This despite its annual general meeting decision in 2010 where PSM had apparently decided against being part of the Pakatan.

PSM secretary-general S Arutchelvan at bar council forum 2 Arutchelvan said PSM has always maintained an electoral pact with the Pakatan since 2008 and wanted to formalise it further by joining the opposition coalition.

"We have not closed the door on joining Pakatan as we maintain an electoral pact with them and have been cooperating with them for quite some time.

"It was only last year that we decided to formally apply to join Pakatan. PSM has had a couple of meetings with Pakatan leaders and is awaiting the results of our application to the Pakatan Rakyat's presidential council," Arutchelvan ( above) told Malaysiakini .

 Electoral pact opened door

Hence, he said it was incorrect to say that PSM had closed its doors in 2010 to being part of the Pakatan when the party had already maintain an electoral pact with it.

Yesterday, it was reported that opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim had said that the Pakatan presidential council will decide soon PSM's application to join the opposition coalition after PSM's several meetings with the Pakatan secretariat.

Anwar was responding to last Wednesday's reports that there had been no response to PSM's application despite Arutchelvan saying they had informed Pakatan about the matter in June, followed by a formal application three months later.

In the March 8, 2008 polls, before PSM was officially registered, its president Dr Nasir Hashim and Dr Michael Jeyakumar contested and won the Kota Damansara state constituency and Sungai Siput parliamentary constituency respectively under the PKR ticket.

PSM was officially registered as a party on August 19, 2008 despite being rooted with the Parti Sosialis Rakyat Malaysia earlier.