KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 2 ― Umno, Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM), and Islamist party PAS will set up a five-man committee to sort out seat allocations for the three parties to contest in the future 15th general election, Tan Sri Annuar Musa said.

The Barisan Nasional secretary-general said the committee is to ensure the three parties do not compete against each other for the same seats but against their common political foe, Pakatan Harapan (PH).

"It’s been decided that we want a one-on-one fight with the Opposition PH,” he tweeted yesterday.

"It’s been decided PPBM, PAS and Umno will create a five-man committee to negotiate the allocation of seats for GE15,” he added.

He said Umno and PAS will write a letter to PPBM inviting it to join them in Muafakat Nasional (MN).

The MN partnership between Umno and PAS, the country’s two largest Malay parties, was inked last September.

Apart from MN, Umno is in several other political partnerships, formally as well as informally. Prior to GE14, it was only in the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition with Indian-based MIC and Chinese-based MCA with 10 other parties which subsequently left when PH took power.

Umno is now part of the informal ruling Perikatan Nasional (PN) alliance with PAS and PPBM.

However, Annuar said Umno has also decided it will not be part of the pro-tem registration for PN even though his party has decided to be part of the alliance.

PPBM, an Umno offshoot founded in 2016, was initially part of the PH coalition that took power after the general election in 2018, but broke away in February this year.

Annuar said that as a component of BN, his party will continue to use the dacing, a pair of scales, as its logo in future elections and will offer this symbol for use to its political friends.