Pakatan can win 12 more federal seats in Election 2013, says Kit Siang
Debra Chong, TMI
Pakatan Rakyat (PR) believes it can bag a dozen more federal seats in Peninsula Malaysia to add to the 125 it needs to trump the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) at the coming national polls.
The DAP’s parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang said today the opposition bloc is eyeing 12 seats from “non-BN fixed deposit states” where his party and political allies PAS and PKR had lost by a narrow vote margin in Election 2008.
“There is at least one of these BN marginal seats in every one of the non-BN fixed deposit seats,” he said in a statement, and added, “Pakatan will target to win half of these seats.”
He named 14 seats in seven states as “realistic wins” for PR. They are Arau in Perlis; Alor Setar in Kedah; Kuala Nerus in Terengganu; Larut, Kuala Kangsar, Kampar and Lumut in Perak; Bentong, Raub and Jerantut in Pahang, Sabak Bernam and Pandan in Selangor, Rembau in Negri Sembilan; and Bukit Katil in Malacca.
The veteran lawmaker said the pact was gunning for 11 other federal seats where the BN had won the popular vote by fewer than 55 per cent.
The include Dungun in Terengganu; Jerlun in Kedah; Padang Rengas, Tambun, Parit, Tapah, Pasir Salak and Bagan Datok in Perak; Temerloh in Pahang; Sepang in Selangor; and Jempol in Negeri Sembilan.
Lim said many of the seats he named had seen a significant jump in the number of first-time voters, whom he believed come from the younger generation and were likely to be drawn to PR’s policies compared to “BN’s scaremongering references to the past”.
He said that given more time before polls are called, PR’s chances of nabbing 12 out of the 25 marginal seats would be boosted.
He said the pact would also be able to defend all 83 parliamentary seats it has in hand now.
Lim had previously identified Johor, Sarawak and Sabah as the BN’s three “fixed deposit states”.
The Ipoh Timor MP, who has confirmed he will be moving to his Johor home state and stand in Gelang Patah for polls, also said previously that PR could wrest seven states in Election 2013, after taking five in Election 2008.
