Anwar says SAPP playing hardball over seats

Pakatan Rakyat's seat negotations in Sabah are being hampered by Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP), which is demanding to contest the lion's share of the state legislative assembly seats.

According to PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim, Pakatan and SAPP have agreed in principle to avoid a three-corner fight, but SAPP wants to contest half of the 59 seats.

He said that PKR was willing to surrender seats to SAPP but the latter was asking for too much.

"That would render the entire negotiation more difficult because all the three parties do not seem to concur or agree with the need to allocate that many seats to SAPP.

"I have appealed to them to substantially reduce the demand so that we can amicably resolve it as soon as possible," he told a press conference in Petaling Jaya yesterday.

Anwar said this when asked about seat allocation among Pakatan component parties in Sabah and Sarawak.

Telephone calls to SAPP president Yong Teck Lee for comments went unanswered.

SAPP is an off-shoot of Parti Bersatu Sabah and was a BN component party until Sept 17, 2009. The party currently has two MPs and two state assemblypersons.

As for Sarawak, Anwar said negotiations were almost complete and are expected to wrap up soon.