PKR leaders R Sivarasa and Saifuddin Nasution, however, imply that they are not agreeable to Parti Sosialis Malaysia using its own logo to contest in the general election.
PETALING JAYA: PKR today denied any rift with Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) in regard to which party would be contesting for the Kota Damansara state seat.
However, the party implied that it was not comfortable with PSM contesting using its own logo.
“We are offering the Kota Damansara state seat and the Sungai Siput parliamentary seat to PSM provided they contest under any of the Pakatan Rakyat party logos,” said PKR supreme council member R Sivarasa at a press conference held at the party headquarters.
Also present was PKR secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution.
Recently, it was reported that Selangor PKR chief Azmin Ali had given the green light to lawyer Razlan Jalaludin to start campaigning for the Kota Damansara state seat.
The seat is currently held by PSM chairman Nasir Hashim.
“We’re friends fighting together against a common enemy. I don’t know why PKR is fussy about us.
“To say that PKR has an issue with our socialist ideology doesn’t make any sense… we never had any problems for the past five years,” Nasir was reported saying.
Elaborating on the matter, Saifuddin said the Pakatan presidential council had already advised PSM to contest using any of the opposition pact’s party logo via a letter some time ago.
“But we didn’t receive any response from them. Since they are not part of the Pakatan pact, we advised them to use our logo,” he said.
Overlapping demands
On why PSM was not admitted into Pakatan despite the former’s application several months back, Saifuddin said, “I cannot answer that now. The issue now is about the logo.”
On another matter, he said that it is Pakatan’s policy to allow the party that lost narrowly to BN in the 2008 election to be given priority to recontest for the particular seat.
He said this in response to Penang PAS’ insistence on fielding its own candidate, state Youth chief Mohd Yusni Mat Piah, for the Sungai Acheh state seat despite PKR nominating its supreme council member Badrul Hisham Shaharin.
“We lost not only the Sungai Acheh state seat narrowly but also parliamentary seats like Bukit Katil, Lumut and Alor Setar in 2008.
“So Pakatan’s policy is that the party which lost narrowly in the previous general election will be allowed to recontest for the same seat,” said Saifuddin.
He added that PKR deputy president Azmin Ali and PAS secretary-general Mustafar Ali are currently in the midst of resolving matters pertaining to overlapping demands.
“But this is a lesser issue compared to MCA losing its Wangsa Maju parliamentary seat to Umno,” said Saifuddin.
In the 2008 general election, Umno candidate, Mahmud Zakaria, defeated PKR’s Dr Azhar Ahamad by a narrow 250-vote margin for the Sungai Acheh seat.
In the same election, Badrul, popularly known as Chegubard, lost by 5,746 votes to Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin for the Rembau parliamentary seat.
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