LAST night (Jan 23), Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim stated that the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition has not officially engaged in discussions with Barisan Nasional (BN) regarding cooperation or strategies for the upcoming state elections.
Additionally, he emphasised that at this point, there have been no conversations regarding the allocation of seats among the two coalitions, perhaps taking into consideration previous rejections of seat-sharing by other members of the PH coalition.
While Anwar acknowledged that state coalition leaders are not restricted from discussing the issue with BN leaders, the Amanah party has publicly expressed their opposition to allocating PH seats to BN candidates.
“We have not discussed the distribution of seats with BN officially, although I have not stopped any party leaders at state level from doing so,” The Malaysian Insight reported him as saying in Bukit Mertajam last night.
Meanwhile, according to FMT, PH Selangor will not hand over the State Legislative Assembly (DUN) seat it won in the state in the 14th General Election (GE14) to BN, including UMNO.
The news portal said this was confirmed by AMANAH Central Leadership Committee member — PH’s component party — Mohd Sany Hamzah.
Sany explained that the coalition will defend all the seats it won, even though it is now cooperating with UMNO, adding that the state elections will test the PH-UMNO agreement at the current federal level.
He said that according to his understanding, PH would not give way to BN, including UMNO, in the state assembly seats won by the coalition in GE18.
Kedah, Penang, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, Terengganu, and Kelantan will dissolve their respective assemblies, most likely in May or June.
On Saturday (Jan 21), PKR deputy president Rafizi Ramli was reported as saying that PH had started discussions with BN about how they could work together. — Jan 24, 2023
Main photo credit: Bernama
