IPOH, Jan 11 — Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) said today it should not be viewed as a spoiler in the 14th general elections (GE14) as other small parties would also be running against Barisan Nasional (BN) and Pakatan Harapan (PH).

The socialist party is planning to contest 20 parliamentary and state seats.

"Besides the ruling party and Pakatan Harapan, we also have Gagasan Sejahtera (PAS, Ikatan, and Berjasa) entering the fray,” PSM deputy chair M. Saraswathy told reporters today.

"So now, the question of splitting votes has nothing to do with PSM — it’s just not valid because there are so many corners now.

"From our perspective, we will let the voters decide. We believe in people as they are the only ones who can bring about change.”

The first-past-the-post system practised in Malaysian elections generally favours the two largest parties.

PH has allocated Sungai Siput, which is PSM’s sole parliamentary seat held by Dr Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj, to PKR.

Dr Jeyakumar has pledged to run again under the PSM banner, after previously contesting under a PKR ticket.

Commenting on this, Saraswathy said PSM was open to discussing the seat with PH.

"We have written to them (about the Sungai Siput situation), but we haven’t heard anything back,” she said.

"It would be better to settle this issue early, instead of waiting for the last minute when Parliament is dissolved. Delaying will only create problems for all parties.”