KUCHING: State PKR chairman Baru Bian says his party is willing to work with any opposition parties that share its stand and struggle for the betterment of Sarawak and Malaysia.
Baru, who is Ba Kelalan assemblyman, said the party had been very consistent on its willingness to work any opposition parties to strengthen the opposition in Sarawak, with the main objective of defeating the governing BN.
“Our opponent is BN not any of the oppositions in Sarawak,” he said in a press conference after chairing the state PKR leadership council meeting, here, yesterday.
Baru said PKR took this stance because it realised that it was not practical for them to stand in all 71 seats throughout the state.
He said currently, all the 29 branches throughout the state were on the ground to prepare for the next state election and
any eventuality. However, he said that did not mean that the party would be contesting in those areas.
“What is important is, if we are not standing in that area if some opposition party were to field some people there, we need to work together. So, without a functioning branch, I don’t think it is practical for us to assist.”
Baru was hopeful that there would be a one-to-one fight against BN in the next state election, adding that if the opposition parties were very serious, they could work together during the polls to reduce the seats held by the ruling coalition.
On the overlapping claims by PKR and DAP on rural seats, he admitted that the latter was moving into some rural areas where PKR was also interested in and that was the reason PKR wanted to negotiate with DAP in the past but DAP decided to stop communications with PKR eventually.
“Notwithstanding that, at the moment, we are preparing ourselves in all the areas where we think that we have been working in the past and areas where we stood in the last election. If it happens that any other people including DAP or opposition trying to get into our areas, then the practical thing is to consider whether it is prudent or wise to have three or even four-corner fight.”
On the ‘competition’ between PKR and DAP in fielding candidates in many areas, Baru said while it is normal for every party to state their desire to stand in certain areas during election preparations, but at the end of the day, it was about examining which party has the winnable candidate.
Baru said the party, from the very beginning did not want to contest against other opposition parties if that could be avoided.