Small parties should join BN or Pakatan

(Bernama) – Independent political parties should either join Barisan Nasional (BN) or Pakatan Rakyat (PR) in facing the coming general election, for them to make an impact on the election results, said a Sabah PKR leader on Saturday, June 18.

The newly-appointed head of its Strategy and Election Bureau, Datuk Karim Ghani, said in this respect, should the Sabah Progressive Party (Sapp) decide to join PR, it should be a full entry and not under a ‘Pakatan Plus’ concept.

“Only BN or PR has the chance of forming the Malaysian government. Without being part of a team, any other small political groups will end up like Snap (Sarawak National Party) in the recent state election.”

“They must belong to the PR team, not be on their own.”

“So, we hope Sapp will become fully PR, not just Pakatan Plus (Sapp)….we will have to wait and see as this is being discussed between PR and Sapp,” he said after the bureau’s meeting at the Sabah PKR’s headquarters, here, Saturday.

Snap was a member of the federal opposition pact. However, just before the Sarawak state election in April this year, it withdrew from PR, citing seat allocation disagreements with PKR.

All of its 26 candidates were defeated in that election, with 25 of them losing their deposits.

On the meeting, Karim said as they expected the general election to be held soon, they also discussed strategies like visits throughout the state to spread the party’s manifesto to bring change to the people of Sabah.