Rigid seat demands could drive Umno to PH, says PAS

PAS has learnt from its past mistakes in seat negotiations with Umno and is taking a more pragmatic approach to its current cooperation, says the party’s information chief Ahmad Fadhli Shaari.

Appearing as a co-host on the Keluar Sekejap podcast, Fadhli said his party had learnt that an “uncompromising position” on seat allocations could risk driving Barisan Nasional (BN) to Pakatan Harapan (PH).

Fadhli, responding to co-host Shahril Hamdan’s observation that PAS appeared to be accepting a smaller share of seats in its arrangement with BN for the Melaka polls, said the current cooperation was more measured as both PAS and Umno were aware of their past disagreements and the need to manage their relationship carefully.

“PAS has learnt a lesson. If we stay rigid on seat distributions, a certain situation will arise… BN will work with PH,” said Fadhli.

“This is something that has happened before, and we don’t want it to happen again.

“We saw signs of this recently when BN appeared to be leaving the door open to negotiations with both sides… and we were wondering what was going on.”

The Umno-led coalition had a shifting stance on cooperation in the lead-up to the Melaka election.

After stating a desire to go solo, BN said it would work with Perikatan Nasional (PN), before then opening the door to talks with PH.

It eventually agreed to work with PN for the Nov 14 election. BN is contesting 23 seats while PN is on the ballot for the remaining five.

Umno keeping options

Shahril said Umno’s leadership was likely to keep its options open during negotiations as it wanted to prevent PAS from becoming too comfortable with their partnership.

Shahril, a former Umno information chief, said the party’s leadership was unlikely to commit fully to any political arrangement, even if it already knew which direction it wanted to take.

Shahril suggested that Umno could be deliberately keeping PAS guessing to discourage the party from making excessive demands for seats.

“I don’t think it was serious (about an alliance with PH). It was just giving hope and dropping hints so that Umno could say it wasn’t fully committed to PAS,” he said.

“If PN asks for more seats, Umno can say, ‘Don’t go overboard, otherwise I’ll go over there.’ At the same time, it does the same with PH.”

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