DAP Sabah urges PKR to gear up seat negotiation talk

KOTA KINABALU: DAP Sabah has called on the new Sabah PKR leadership to immediately take over from the previous leadership on the matter of seat negotiations.

DAP Sabah publicity secretary Chan Foong Hin yesterday said the new Sabah PKR leadership led by Ahmad Thamrin Mohd Jaini who has been re-appointed as the party’s new state chief, should honor the outcome of previous seat negotiation talks.

Welcoming the new leadership transition of Sabah PKR, Chong said DAP Sabah hoped that this would be the last round of reshuffle of Sabah PKR leadership before the 13th General Election which is expected to be held within six months from now.

He said it is crucial to have a proper line-up of Pakatan Rakyat machinery to face the general election.

“The new Sabah PKR leadership should honor the outcome of previous seat negotiation talks.

"We should gear up the progress to settle the remaining overlapping seats, and hopefully the final round of seat talk can be accomplished before the end of this month,” he said in a statement.

“Equality principle is the utmost principle which should be uphold by every component party of Pakatan Rakyat. The spirit of ‘no one should be bigger than anyone’ should be adopted in seat negotiation. Sabah DAP would like to call to impose a presidential condition of ‘ceiling seats’ in order to reflect the equality principle,” he said.

Under the ‘ceiling seats’ condition of president, Chan said any component party in Pakatan Rakyat should not contest more than 12 of the 25 parliamentary seats and 25 of 60 State Assembly seats in Sabah.

“This is the best machanism to prevent any component party to be dominant in the alliance and with that we can distance away from the Barisan Nasional style of partnership – only Umno can make decision afterall they control 32 seats in the state assembly,” he said.

Chan added Sabah DAP still stick to the decision of non co-operation with Sabah Progressive Party and other local parties, “unless they recognize Pakatan Rakyat’s equality principle and join us without any preset condition which only protects their self interest”.

“Sabah Pakatan Rakyat still open the door for any local political party which is interested to join us by abiding with the Pakatan Rakyat Sabah secretariat’s terms of reference,” he added.18 Oktober 2011