PH to pay extra attention to 'danger seats' in Penang state polls - Chow

NIBONG TEBAL: The Pakatan Harapan (PH) machinery will go all out in six of seven Penang state seats that it may have problems retaining in next year's state election, State PH chairman Chow Kon Yeow said.

Without naming the seats concerned, the Penang chief minister said voting trends in the recent 15th general election (GE15) results suggest that PH could find it tough to defend those seats.

"My views are based on the GE15 parliamentary polling channel results which are capable of giving a true insight into voters' choices.

"So, this is an indicator, given that (state) elections were not held simultaneously," he told reporters after officiating at the 'Khatan Perdana Kadun Jawi 2022' programme here today. Also present was Education Minister and Nibong Tebal MP Fadhlina Sidek.

Chow was elaborating on his earlier statement in which he predicted that based on GE15 voting trends, PH is in danger of losing six or seven seats in the Penang state election.

Chow was also reported to have said that although this would not affect PH's dominance in Penang, the coalition's influence in the state may now not be strong as before.

In this regard, Chow said PH component parties will lay out strategies and organise community programmes, in addition to meeting relevant agencies for solutions over issues that dominated GE15.

In GE14, PH won 37 of the 40 state seats in Penang, Barisan Nasional (BN) two seats and PAS (one).

However, following Bersatu's exit from PH that led to the formation of the Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition, and after the Seberang Jaya and Sungai Acheh assemblymen were sacked from PKR and later joined Bersatu, that composition changed to PH (33 seats), BN (2) and PN (5).

-- BERNAMA