Strained over seat tussle
PAS, DAP and PKR are fighting each other to contest in more seats, believing they have the support from across the ethnic divide to deliver the votes for the Pakatan Rakyat coalition.
DAP, essentially a Chinese party, wants to project a national image with Malay support and this has led it to step on the toes of PAS and PKR. In turn, both PAS and PKR want to keep their Malay base but are keen to expand into non-Malay territories, thus stepping on DAP’s toes.
BARADAN KUPPUSAMY, The Star
THE tussle for seats among the parties in the Pakatan Rakyat coalition is about to get worse as the general election nears.
This is because each party believes it can get votes from across the ethnic divide in the altered political landscape of post-2008.
At the last polls, their seat distribution largely followed racial lines – DAP contesting in Chinese-majority seats, PAS in Malay-majority seats and the PKR in the “mixed” seats.
Now, however, it is a different ball game and the 2008 contract among them that was brokered by Pakatan supremo Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is beginning to fray at the edges.
PKR has begun muscling into Chinese-majority seats that, until now, had been DAP’s domain.
DAP, on the other hand, wants more mixed seats from the PKR and PAS for its own crop of Malay candidates.
PAS, emboldened by the non-Malay support it received in 2008, also wants more mixed seats.
DAP has lately made serious efforts to win over Malay voters, recruiting former Umno members and others as potential candidates and prospective mentris besar to show it is a multiracial party.
PAS, with its non-Malay supporters’ clubs, is also showing it has multi-ethnic support to replace Umno as the main pillar in a new PAS-controlled government.
DAP and PAS are also eyeing seats the PKR had lost by defection in Parliament and the state assemblies.
This new scenario is causing dissension on the ground, where spats are seen among Pakatan parties in Kedah, Johor and Perak.
“Some leaders are virtually held hostage by their supporters, while other leaders – under pressure to announce candidates – have got into trouble with their respective parties,” said a DAP leader.
A case in point is Penang Deputy Chief Minister II Dr P. Ramasamy, who got into trouble with party chairman Karpal Singh for announcing the names of four or five Indian representatives as “sure candidates” for the general election.
The usual way of the parties to stop spats from getting uglier and damaging is to either impose a gag order or to leave the seat negotiation details to national leaders.
The Pakatan has had several leaders’ council meeting on the thorny seat issue but the final list has still not been agreed on.
While the majority of seats will follow the 2008 formula, there are many sticky points.
It is Anwar’s job to settle the intractable points hanging over the Pakatan as the coalition prepares for the polls.
At the local level, however, they remain hot-button issues with each state leader staking claims that often defy logic.
In Kedah, for instance, Mentri Besar and state PAS leader Datuk Seri Azizan Abdul Razak has put his foot down to say the Pakatan will retain the 2008 seat distribution formula.
“Our party (PAS) will not give up any of our seats to DAP or PKR,” Azizan emphatically said, slamming the door on DAP’s ambition to contest more seats in the state.
DAP contested two seats and won one in 2008. It now wants five more state seats and two parliamentary seats – and wants the PKR and PAS to concede.
In Johor, DAP and PKR are at loggerheads over the parliamentary Gelang Patah and Bakri seats as well as the state seats of Tangkak, Johor Jaya, Stulang and Skudai.
In the background is a bitter clash between state DAP chief Dr Boo Cheng Hau and former MCA stalwart and current state PKR chief Datuk Chua Jui Meng.
Chua wants to contest in Gelang Patah, a seat where DAP wants to put its own candidate.
In Sabah and Sarawak – states that escaped the political tsunami of 2008 – the fight to get an edge is especially fierce between DAP and PKR.
DAP, essentially a Chinese party, wants to project a national image with Malay support and this has led it to step on the toes of PAS and PKR. In turn, both PAS and PKR want to keep their Malay base but are keen to expand into non-Malay territories, thus stepping on DAP’s toes.
The stakes are high, but unlike DAP, PKR and PAS are fighting to survive. It all makes for an interesting general election that any prospective candidate would not want to miss and become YB.
