JOHOR BARU, Sept 1 ― PKR is keen to field its candidates for at least 14 federal seats in Johor in the coming 15th general election.
Its deputy president Rafizi Ramli said PKR is hoping to contest the seats that were allocated to Bersatu in the last national poll before the latter quit from Pakatan Harapan (PH).
“In the last general election in 2018, PKR contested eight parliamentary seats and won six of them. The seats are Tebrau, Pasir Gudang, Johor Baru, Sekijang, Segamat, Batu Pahat and Ledang.
“This time round the additional seats were being targeted by the party as Johor will be among the main states to be campaigned by PH come GE15,” he told reporters early this morning after chairing a meeting with newly appointed Johor PKR state leadership council at the party’s state office in Pusat Perdagangan Danga Utama in Skudai here.
The meeting started at 9.45pm yesterday and ended around midnight. Rafizi, who is also Johor PKR chief, said he’s not able to announce which parliamentary seats yet as “distribution of seats for the respective parties under PH have yet to be decided”.
“The discussions on seat distribution will be negotiated at PH’s central leadership today,” he said, and added that he expects negotiations will wrap up by end of this month.
“Basically, the seats contested by PH's component parties namely PKR, Parti Amanah Negara and DAP during the previous 14th general election will remain.
“The negotiations will only involve the former Bersatu seats that were contested by the party when they were under PH,” he said, adding that the PH component party negotiation process will be much easier for Johor as it will not include the state assembly seats.
Rafizi, who is also the PKR election director, added that negotiations will consider each component party’s strength in that particular seat.
He said Batu Pahat is an example of where PKR had gained a foothold since 2013 and stood a good chance of winning.
He added that PKR was also the first non-Barisan Nasional party to win in Segamat and Tebrau, suggesting that his party may contest there in GE15 too even though those who won there in GE14 have since switched their allegiances.
Batu Pahat MP Datuk Rashid Hasnon, Datuk Seri Edmund Santhara Kumar (Segamat) and Steven Choong Shiau Yoon (Tebrau) were among those who took part in the February 2020 Sheraton Move.
Both Rashid and Edmund Santhara are now Bersatu members, while Choong has joined Parti Bangsa Malaysia.
