Selangor Harapan seat talks - PKR gets to contest bulk of seats

PKR will contest in at least 19 state seats out of the 56 in Selangor while Amanah and Bersatu will get only nine and seven seats respectively, Selangor Amanah chief Izham Hashim (above) has revealed.

Following the decision on seat allocation negotiations reached on March 8, Izham said DAP will contest all the15 state seats it won in the 2013 general election.

After quite a tussle and two major deadlines missed – Jan 31 and Feb 7 – the Pakatan Harapan seat negotiations for Selangor managed to resolve the allocations for 50 seats at its third formal meeting two weeks ago.

The seat allocation committee has also decided to refer the six unresolved seats claimed simultaneously by several parties to the state coalition leadership.The unresolved seats are Lembah Jaya, Seri Serdang, Sungai Panjang, Kota Damansara, Dusun Tua and Sungai Burong.

"PAS contested seven parliamentary seats and 20 state seats in 2013. Amanah, as the party set up to replace PAS, we requested to contest (only) five parliamentary seats and 13 state seats.

"We manage to get all five parliamentary seats we asked for but we only secured nine state seats out of 13 we requested," Izham said.

The states seats given to Amanah are two incumbent seats - Ulu Kelang and Morib - as well as seven others held by PAS, which are Bangi, Chempaka, Meru, Taman Templer, Paya Jaras, Sabak and Ulu Bernam.

"Besides Ulu Bernam, the rest of the seats were won by PAS in the 2013 election," he said.

Amanah will also defend three of its incumbent parliamentary seats – Kota Raja, Shah Alam and Sepang – and two parliamentary PAS seats – Hulu Langat and Kuala Selangor.

PKR will keep and contest the 14 seats it won in the last election, as well as five other seats it lost to Umno, which are Permatang, Bukit Melawati, Kuang, Semenyih and Dengkil.

EC redelineation report

Bersatu, meanwhile, will contest in three BN seats – Batang Kali, Jeram and Sungai Ayer Tawar and also four seats held by PAS seats – Batang Kali, Gombak Setia, Sijangkang and Selat Kelang.

Selangor Harapan chairperson and Selangor Menteri Besar Mohd Azmin Ali, who took over the seat negotiations in the later stages, had met with Amanah representatives personally, Izham said.

"He told me that Amanah shouldn't ask for too many seats and I said we didn't," he said declining to elaborate further on what transpired between him and Azmin during the talks.

Izham also said that the four parties would have to study the Election Commission's redelineation report to be tabled in Parliament soon and if any of the new electoral boundaries did not favour any one party, they may have to swap seats.

As for the six disputed seats, he said all four parties had hotly demanded to contest Lembah Jaya, an urban seat comprising 54 percent Malay voters and 32 percent Chinese.

Three of the parties – except for DAP – also want Sri Serdang while Bersatu and PKR both want Sungai Panjang and Kota Damansara.

The three parties also laid claim to Dusun Tua, while both Amanah and Bersatu want to stand in Sungai Burong. Mkini