PAKATAN WANTS 50 OUT OF 60 STATE SEATS

PAKATAN Rakyat (PR) has officially excluded Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) from seat negotiations on Sabah’s opposition front, PKR’s Azmin Ali has confirmed, claiming the party’s demands are too unreasonable to accommodate.

With SAPP out of the seat negotiations, Pakatan can now have all the 576 state seats to contest for the whole of Malaysia for themselves, ironically claiming that SAPP's demands for half of the Sabah state seats of 60 (that is 30 seats) are unreasonable.

Pakatan had wanted the lion's share of state seats while only offering 10 for SAPP to contest.

SAPP, a nearly two-decade-old party led by former Sabah chief minister Datuk Yong Teck Lee, had earlier agreed to collaborate with PR in Election 2013 to topple BN from its east Malaysian fortress, but has been insisting that local parties must contest the lion’s share of the 60 seats in the state’s legislative assembly.

Yong said the peninsula-based PR can contest the majority of Sabah’s 25 federal seats to help its bid for Putrajaya but maintained that administrative power over the state must stay in the hands of parties with roots in Sabah.

He said that this would be in keeping with the state’s right to autonomy as enshrined in the 1963 Malaysia Agreement.

But Azmin told The Malaysian Insider that Yong’s demand for 40 or even half the state’s 60 seats was unreasonable while in fact, the number was reduced by SAPP to half of 60 ie. 30 seats. Azmin must have or intentionally missed the part.

Earlier on, SAPP Youth Chief Edward Dagul told Pakatan not to breach but to honour its pledge during the 'Kuching Declaration' in Kuching, Sarawak.

The three main parties of Pakatan Rakyat had on Sep 16, 2012 launched 'Kuching Declaration' to declare that Pakatan will restore Sarawak and Sabah's status equal to that Peninsular Malaysia and to safeguard the two States' political interests. It also emphasized on equal representation and autonomy. The declaration was jointly signed by PKR's leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, DAP's YB Lim Kit Siang and PAS president YB Hadi Awang.

Among others, the declaration's Article 1 promises " We will restore the spirit of the Malaysia Agreement and the position of Sarawak and Sabah as equal partners within Malaysia by restoring autonomy to Sarawak and Sabah within the framework of the Federal Constitution".

Under Article 2 on "Fair representation", the declaration promises to "increase national integration between Sarawak, Sabah and Peninsular Malaysia through power-sharing arrangement that fully upholds the spirit of Malaysia Agreement".

With SAPP and Star excluded from the seats negotiation, Pakatan will become wholly Malayan-controlled party coalition without Sabah local-based parties as allies, now having total control over whatever seats they want to control without regard nor respect for the home parties and Sabah territory as equal partners. (Wiki Sabah)