Immediately after emerging victorious, at the winding-up session of the president’s policy address at the PKR National Congress 2024/2025 the newly installed Deputy President of PKR, she said the party will ask its president to negotiate for PKR to get 13 seats for the upcoming elections in the state of Sabah.
Is the newly installed Deputy President attempting a grandstanding in front of all the delegates or again, it is another of those lofty promises PKR is making to its members?
Asking to contest in 13 seats for a party that currently only has 2 elected representatives in the state assembly?
In the Sabah state elections that took place on 26 September 2020, the Pakatan Harapan coalition, comprising of PKR, DAP and UPKO, PKR competed in 8 seats but won only 2 as compared to DAP who competed in 7 seats and won 6 while UPKO competed in 12 seats but won only 1.
Collectively the combined coalition of PKR, DAP and UPKO competed in 27 seats and won only a total of 9 seats together,
Was she hoping that UPKO will give up 5 of the seats they contested but lost in the last state elections to PKR in the upcoming state elections?
Given the joint statement issued by UPKO and Parti Bersatu Rakyat Sabah (PBRS) who is a component member of BN in May 2025, where they jointly states that local aspirations must form the foundation of broader political coalition negotiations in Sabah ahead of the upcoming state election, it looks unlikely that UPKO will give up the 12 seats that they competed in in the last state elections.
What about the other political parties i.e the BN / UMNO, GRS – Sabah Bersatu, GRS PBS and GRS Sabah Star coalition who together with PKR, DAP and UPKO formed the ruling coalition in Sabah presently?
Again, this is like waiting for the sun to rise from the west.
Anyway, the Sabah chief minister Hajiji Noor has reiterated recently his desire to continue the existing alliance between his Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) coalition and Pakatan Harapan (PH) for the upcoming state election saying clearly that the existing cooperation between GRS and PH in governing the state should be the foundation in determining any electoral pact.
Thus, this again ruled out any of the non Pakatan Harapan political parties in the unity government in Sabah will be willing to give up any of the seats they contested in the last state election in the coming state elections.
If PKR had won all the 8 seats it competed in the last state elections, it could possibly convince or they could have ‘muscled’ their way in for the 13 seats that the newly anointed Deputy President is salivating over.
Lest she is not aware, her declaration could possibly stir up the hornet’s nest as both the East Malaysian states of Sabah & Sarawak are already making greater demands and inroads for greater representation at the Federal level and greater autonomy through the fulfilment of MA63 by the Federal Government.
Once the genie is out of the bottle, she might be overwhelmed with the consequences.
BN and UMNO is probably looking at this, rubbing their hands gleefully, which if agreed upon, would see them doing it i.e asking to contest in all the seats they lost previously including those they lost to Pakatan Harapan in the 15th GE.
Or she will call on the President of the party to help and cap back the bottle?
FLK is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
The User Content (as defined on Newswav Terms of Use) above including the views expressed and media (pictures, videos, citations etc) were submitted & posted by the author. Newswav is solely an aggregation platform that hosts the User Content. If you have any questions about the content, copyright or other issues of the work, please contact creator@newswav.com.
