Pakatan infighting surfaces in three seats

(TMI) – Pakatan Rakyat (PR) parties’ failure to compromise fully on seat negotiations will see PAS and PKR spoil each other’s fight against Barisan Nasional (BN) in Labuan, Sungai Acheh and Kota Damansara.

The Labuan federal seat has BN candidate Rosman Isli going up against PKR’s Ibrahim Menudin and PAS runner Hadnan Mohamad.

“There is no compromise, we are fighting each other. We cannot withdraw since we already filed our nomination papers, and if we withdraw, we will lose our deposit,” Ibrahim was quoted as saying by The Star on its website today.

A similar situation also occurred in the Penang state seat, where PKR’s Badrul Hisham Shaharin submitted his papers along with PAS’s Mohd Yusni Mat Piah to contest the seat against incumbent BN lawmaker Mahmud Zakaria.

Kota Damansara, which earlier saw PKR wrangling with PSM over which party’s logo would be used, will see the crescent moon of PAS on the same ballot with PKR’s seeing eye logo and BN’s scales.

There, incumbent state assemblyman Dr Nasir Hashim defend his seat against PAS’s Ridzuan Ismail, BN’s Halimaton Saadiah, and three independent contestants.

Malaysia practises a “winner-takes-all” voting system in which seats are won by the candidate with the most votes and not necessarily the majority.

Such a system is considered advantageous to the ruling party as votes for candidates other than the runner-up are essentially votes for the winner.