Penang chief minister Lim Guan Eng announced today his party has dropped its plan of dissolution to the Penang legislative assembly that would have paved the way for early elections in the state this year.
The DAP secretary general said the decision was made following consultation with party leaders and the state leadership after PKR conveyed yesterday its disagreement to snap polls, even though their other partner Parti Amanah Negara was agreeable to it.
“Following the disagreement of PKR to a state general election, the DAP will not proceed with proposals for a state general election,” Lim said in a statement.
“DAP upholds the collective consultative process. Despite being unfairly criticised, we will keep our word and display trustworthiness as a basis towards forging a strong coalition in Pakatan,” he added.
The chief minister said he was informed by Selangor MB Datuk Seri Azmin Ali yesterday that the PKR leadership disagreed with the DAP early election plan for Penang following their July 20 meeting.
He disclosed that during that meeting, a proposal had been made for DAP to give up “one or two” of its state seats to PKR so that the early polls idea would be more acceptable as there was concern that PKR was at greater risk if it went to the ballots this year.
“However, we stated that this was not feasible,” Lim said.
There are 40 state seats in Penang and the DAP holds 19 while PKR has 10; the state Barisan Nasional (BN) opposition holds another 10 and PAS, one.
The current Pakatan Harapan administration’s mandate will expire in 2018 and Lim said its leaders will now focus on making Penang a model of good governance and developing the state’s entrepreneurial and welfare programmes for the next elections so it will win based on its own strengths and “not by default” from what he alleged to be the failures of the BN coalition.
“Only then are we confident to face the next elections and not fear losing seats,” he said.
The DAP proposed to hold snap polls this year after Lim was indicted on two corruption charges over the alleged approval to rezone agricultural land to residential and his controversial RM2.8 million house purchase said to be under market value.
He had repeatedly said the early polls proposal was not to save him from the two charges but to enable Penangites to endorse a clean Pakatan government.
Source -Malay Mail Online-
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