PKR to ask Pakatan partners to share Sarawak burden
By Clara Chooi, The Malaysian Insider
PETALING JAYA, April 26 — PKR wants Pakatan Rakyat (PR) partners to share the burden of contesting in hard-to-win seats in Sarawak during the coming general election to avoid a repeat of the just-concluded state polls.
PKR strategy director Rafizi Ramli told reporters today that he will raise the matter during the PR secretariat meeting tomorrow.
He pointed out that PKR had been forced to stretch its resources thin during the April 16 state polls when it contested in a whopping 49 state seats, a move that had likely contributed to its failure to win in more than just three constituencies.
The party, he revealed, had originally only been intent on contesting in 25 seats where it felt its presence was strong but had to field candidates in an additional 24 “impossible-to-win” seats when neither one of its PR partners were willing to take on the challenge.
“Even SNAP was not willing to reach a compromise and only wanted to field its candidates in the areas where PKR felt it had a chance of scoring.
“We did not have a choice,” he told a press conference to reveal the party’s first analysis of the Sarawak polls.
When the polls concluded on April 16, DAP emerged the most victorious of the three PR parties when it swept up 12 of the 15 state seats that it contested. Trailing far behind was PKR with just three of 49 seats while PAS failed to win any of the five seats it contested.
BN triumphed in 55 seats, down eight seats from its previous 63 seats during the 2006 polls, and had its popular vote dip eight per cent to 54.5 per cent.
While Rafizi stressed that PKR was not upset at having to shoulder the burden, he noted that it would help the pact greatly if DAP and PAS were willing to venture into some of the black areas known to be Barisan Nasional (BN) fortresses for the coming polls.
“I know I am the most junior and therefore I don’t mind to be slaughtered after this for saying this but definitely, somebody has to say it.. and definitely these issues will be brought to the post-mortem when PR meets.
“We understand the fact that there are seats where a party stands a better chance but if we were to move foward, we have to take note that real change can only happen if Sabah and Sarawak changes.
“For the longest time, these states were BN’s fixed deposits simply because there was a zero presence of opposition forces,” he said.
