PR to negotiate with SAPP – Anwar

KOTA KINABALU: Pakatan Rakyat (PR) in Sabah must take positively the willingness of Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) to negotiate the possibility of working together with the coalition in the coming general election, said PR leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
“In Sabah, SAPP has indicated its readiness to negotiate, so I think we have to take that view positively and have a discussion with the party.

“We will leave this matter to the state PR leadership to come up with the best formula to resolve the matter,” he told reporters before leaving for Kuching yesterday.

Anwar is hopeful the PR leadership will get a report from the state leadership after the first Pakatan Rakyat Sabah Secretariat Convention on Sept 16.

“As a matter of principle, we support the need to continue with the negotiations between PR and SAPP,” he said.

Asked if PR would work with SAPP without it having to join the coalition, Anwar said it is not an issue because what is more important is the fact that SAPP supports the democratic reforms PR is fighting for.

“We want to have an understanding and as far as I am concerned, we need to allow the meeting to take place. But whether SAPP joins PR or not, it is not the issue as we need to know if they support democratic reforms such as fair elections, independent judiciary, new economic policy, etc.

“All these things must be agreed upon then we can come together. Apparently I see Datuk Yong Teck Lee (SAPP president), in his statements, seem to support many of these reform agendas, so let’s discuss,” he said.

Anwar said the general mood now is the people want to see a straight fight between the Barisan Nasional (BN) and Opposition in the coming election.

“We try to achieve our intention to have a straight fight between PR and BN or PR Plus1 in this case, I don’t know. The bottom line is we want a race against BN… one party against the coalition,” he said.

by Nancy Lai. Posted on September 5, 2011, Monday (The Borneo Post)