Malacca election: PKR to contest 11, Amanah 9, DAP 8

 

Pakatan Harapan today announced that its three components will contest all 28 seats in the upcoming Malacca state election.

In a press conference this morning, Harapan chairperson Anwar Ibrahim announced that the decision reached was for PKR to contest 11 constituencies, while Amanah and DAP to go for nine and eight seats, respectively.

The decision also saw PKR and Amanah each get an extra three state seats to contest in this election. The six seats were previously contested by Bersatu when it was part of Harapan during the 14th general election.

"We have decided to finalise allocation of seats to be contested in the state election. The decision we have reached is that PKR will contest 11 seats, Amanah nine, and DAP eight," he said.

While the seats have been divied up, Anwar indicated that negotiations are currently ongoing with youth based party Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (Muda).

"We are having discussions. It is still ongoing. We are in talks," Anwar said.

Muda had expressed its intention to work with Harapan and field its candidates under the coalition's banner.

Its president Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman reportedly said two days ago that Muda was holding talks with Harapan on the matter.

At this juncture, Muda is unable to field candidates under its own banner because it is not officially recognised as a political party after the Home Ministry rejected its application to register.

While it is an opposition party, Muda is not part of any coalition but was known to be friendly to Harapan and two other opposition parties Pejuang and Warisan.

DAP gets extra parliamentary seat

Malacca has six parliamentary constituencies, under which there are a total of 28 state seats.

During the 14th general election in 2018, Harapan's four components including Bersatu had divided the parliamentary seats among them - PKR and Amanah each contested two, while Bersatu and DAP took one each.

For the state seats, GE14 saw PKR and DAP each contested eight while Amanah and Bersatu got six each.

According to Anwar today, the one parliamentary seat contested by Bersatu in GE14 was a traditional seat for DAP and thus will be returned to the party when Harapan goes for the next general election.

"The next general election would see DAP taking on the Alor Gajah parliamentary seat again.

"It was given to Bersatu to contest in GE14. So now it will go back to DAP," Anwar said.

The press conference, however, did not reveal whether a decision has been made on which seats were allocated for each Harapan party. - Mkini