JOHOR WILL BE BERSATU’S BASTION: MUHYIDDIN & CO TO CONTEST 18 SEATS, DAP 14, PKR & AMANAH 12 EACH

Umno-splinter group Bersatu will take the lion’s share of state seats in Johor, contesting 18 out of 56 seats.

Pakatan Harapan sources, which confirmed the seat allocations finalised on Jan 18, said DAP will be contesting 14 seats while PKR and Amanah will each have 12 seats.

“This is the final list, but we will call a Harapan Johor convention to formally announced it,” a source familiar with the seat negotiations said.

Bersatu strategist Rais Hussin also said that the list would be announced at the convention, but added that it was still subject to endorsement by the Harapan presidential council.

Rais said the negotiations were completed magnanimously between all parties.

“This indeed augurs well for the Harapan coalition and we are looking forward to rebuilding and reinventing Johor and Malaysia,” he said.

Bersatu taking the lead in Johor comes as no surprise as it is widely expected to be the state where the fledgeling party seeks to make its mark.

Analyst Wan Saiful Wan Jan had said that winning Johor could make or break Bersatu, as without an anchor state it may suffer from a short lifespan like other Umno offshoots such as Semangat 46.

Seat negotiations on the federal level had been a tense affair for Johor Harapan.

Johor Amanah had boycotted the coalition’s national convention earlier this month after the party only got two out of the five parliament seats that it asked for.

The state seat negotiations are expected to be a litmus test for whether Harapan can quell dissatisfaction among its own ranks over the seat allocations.

MKINI