KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 1 — The three PKR seats in Johor sought by DAP are not Chinese-majority constituencies, Lim Kit Siang said today.
The DAP parliamentary leader also stressed that his party was not interested in the seats — Johor Baru, Tebrau and Pasir Gudang — purely because they have large Chinese electorates.
“A question has been raised as to whether DAP should get a Chinese-majority seat by virtue of being a Chinese party?
“The answer is a triple negative: 'No' to DAP should get a Chinese-majority seat 'by virtue of being a Chinese party'; 'No' to DAP being a Chinese party; and 'No' to any one of the three parliamentary in Johor Baru as Chinese-majority seats,” Lim said in a statement today.
Lim provided voter data to show that the Chinese accounted for 43 per cent of voters in Johor Baru, and 38 per cent in both Tebrau and Pasiru Gudang.
The DAP parliamentary leader then lamented that the Barisan Nasional's perspective of his party was now being shared by an ally, in apparent reference to a PKR leader's response to Lim's expressed intent to contest the three seats.
PKR candidates contested all three Johor seats in Election 2013.
PKR's Tebrau chief Steven Choong was yesterday reported as criticising DAP over its plan to request that it be allowed to contest the three seats in the general election, ostensibly as part of the party's plan to take control of the state.
Lim previously claimed Pakatan Harapan could take as many as five additional states including Johor with a 15 per cent vote swing, but political analysts have rejected this projection as improbable.
The PKR-DAP clash is the latest episode of infighting plaguing the federal Opposition heading into the general election that must be held by August 2018.
