All eyes will be on whether BN will announce candidates for all 36 seats up for grabs in Negeri Sembilan tonight, amid rife speculation that a deal has been reached with Perikatan Nasional.
When met by reporters today, Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was coy on how many seats his party will contest.
"It will be announced tonight," Utusan Malaysia quoted him as saying.
Instead, he only confirmed that MCA will contest seven seats and MIC will contest four.
Both component parties did not contest the last state election, after being left out of negotiations between BN and federal partner Pakatan Harapan.
The last time all BN components contested Negeri Sembilan at the state level was in 2018, when MCA contested 10 seats, and MIC contested two, while then-ally party Gerakan contested another two.
Zahid did not explain why MCA will contest fewer seats or whether MIC will take MCA or Gerakan seats.
If BN doesn't announce candidates for all 36 seats tonight, then it is quite likely that they will be making way for PN in the remaining constituencies.
The move to avoid clashes will most likely be framed as an effort to unite Malays at the ballot box - a move that will heavily disadvantage Harapan.
Talks with Bersatu
On Sunday night, PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang said PAS was seeking cooperation with Umno and would be willing to make way for the latter in the 14 seats it holds.
However, Zahid said at the time that any discussions with PAS were merely based on an understanding and that there was no agreement yet.
Then on Tuesday, PN information chief Annuar Musa said all will be answered by Thursday night, after his coalition has also unveiled its list of candidates.
PAS’ fellow PN component member, MIPP, has also confirmed it is holding separate talks with Umno ahead of the Negeri Sembilan election.
While MIPP deputy president S Subramaniam confirmed that PN’s supreme council was not made aware of any cooperation between PAS and the BN linchpin, a separate source also told Malaysiakini that PAS had “quietly” held talks with Umno.
The source added that BN has since “summoned” PAS’ and Parti Wawasan Negara’s candidates for the Negeri Sembilan polls.
Meanwhile, talks between PN and BN may have excluded Bersatu.
Negeri Sembilan Bersatu chief Hanifah Abu Baker told Malaysiakini that talks at the PAS headquarters on Sunday were not completed.
They were supposed to resume on Monday, but the meeting was postponed again.
"To this day, the PN secretary-general (Takiyuddin Hassan) hasn't called for a meeting to discuss seat allocations after it was postponed," he said when contacted. - Mkini
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