The Malaysian Insight

STATE elections will not be held in Selangor, Penang and Negri Sembilan during the 15th general election, the Pakatan Harapan (PH) presidential council announced today.

PH chairman Anwar Ibrahim said the state assemblies in the three states will not be dissolved ahead of the general election.

He said this is to prepare the ground work in the event of flooding in the states during the monsoon season, which is expected next month.

“The PH state governments’ focus at this time is urgent flood-related problems,” Anwar said.

Parliament was dissolved on Monday.

The Election Commission is expected to announce nomination and polling dates on October 20.

DAP secretary-general Anthony Loke said the party will abide by the decision of the council not to dissolve the Penang state legislature and hold elections. 

The party’s state leadership in Penang had been pushing for state elections to be held at the same time as the general election.

Loke said the PH decision will not give its rivals ammunition to attack the pact if it reversed its position on the matter. 

“The PH decision in facing the 15th general election is important. We should not give an impression that there are cracks in the PH (over the issue). That is why I agreed on behalf of the DAP. I was given a mandate by the Central Executive Committee on this matter. We did our best to pitch our case for a dissolution but there were counter-arguments on the subject.

“The presidential council had discussed this matter two to three times and we now agreed that there will be no dissolution until a later date next year, when the monsoon season is over and it will be conducive to hold state elections,” said Loke at the same press conference. 

With this decision, a total of six states will not be holding state elections simultaneously with federal polls.

Apart from Penang, Selangor and Negri Sembilan, the others are the PAS states of Kedah, Terengganu and Kelantan.

Islamist party president Abdul Hadi Awang said the party did not want to hold state polls as it wanted to focus its effort in providing relief to flood victims during the monsoon period, which traditionally hits the east coast states hardest. – October 15, 2022.