Pua: No use crying over ‘spilt milk’ in S’wak
Pua, who is also DAP National Publicity Secretary, added that PKR Vice-President and Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah in fact made the “happy announcement” that all seat negotiations between DAP and PKR had been amicably resolved. “PKR Deputy President Azmin Ali was present at the meeting.”
(FMT) – The multi-cornered fight in six seats in the Sarawak elections was certainly regrettable, conceded Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua in a statement. “However, the milk has been spilt.”
“All parties should move forward with the campaign against Barisan Nasional (BN) and not be bogged down by the internal dispute on these six seats.”
In pointing out that there were 74 other seats where the informal opposition alliance was fighting the BN, he stressed that there were 10 full days of campaigning to go. “It will be best to focus our guns on BN.”
He was begging to differ with a press statement by Penang PKR Chairman Mansor Othman, on Tuesday, on the seat negotiations among the opposition allies. “We wish to set the record straight.”
Pua, who is also DAP National Publicity Secretary, added that PKR Vice-President and Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah in fact made the “happy announcement” that all seat negotiations between DAP and PKR had been amicably resolved. “PKR Deputy President Azmin Ali was present at the meeting.”
“He did not voice a word of objection.”
Hence, PKR President Wan Azizah Wan Ismail announced that DAP and PKR had arrived at a seat allocation agreement which will permit a one-to-one fight with BN. In any case, recalled the MP, the meeting decided that it was best to leave it to the respective Sarawak chapters to announce the actual seats which had been agreed.
Pua noted that Mansor said that Azmin kept engaging DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng on the five disputed seats, Mulu, Mambong, Ngemah, Murum and Simanggang. “That’s untrue.”
While Guan Eng was informed via third party sources repeatedly over a two week period that Azmin intended to call him to renegotiate the seat allocation agreement, the DAP Secretary-General never received any call from Azmin during the period, claimed Pua. “Lim only received a call from Azmin on Sunday night before nomination was to be carried out the next morning.”
Mansor claimed that Azmin proposed to resolve the impasse with three seats under PKR and two seats under DAP to avoid three-cornered duels. “Guan Eng refused to consider any amicable resolution to avoid a three-cornered fight,” Pua quoted Mansor as saying.
“Mansor failed to recognise that the amicable solution where both parties compromised had already been achieved on April 7 and endorsed by the Pakatan Harapan Presidential Council on April 11.”
Any one-sided attempts to renegotiate where PKR had compromised, without taking into consideration what the DAP had compromised earlier, can never be acceptable to any party, argued Pua. “That’s like saying the DAP, having given away the nearly-safe seat of Batu Kitang, reneged on the agreement and demanded the seat to be given back without returning any to PKR.”
In addition, asked Pua, there’s no point in both parties spending RM108,000 on the Merdeka Center surveys if they do not abide by the outcome. “It’s also necessary to set the record straight that Azmin only asked to take an additional three seats from us, Mulu, Murum and Mambong.”
“We were shocked when PKR fielded candidates in five seats including Simanggang and Ngemah.”
