DAP drops Penang snap polls proposal

DAP would not go ahead with their proposal to dissolve the Penang state assembly and conduct a snap election.

Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng today said the decision was made as the proposal did not get the support of its coalition partner, PKR.

"Following the disagreement of PKR to a state general election, DAP will not proceed with the proposal for a state general election," he told a press conference here today.

He said PKR Deputy President Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali informed that the party leadership did not agree with having early polls.

Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin, PKR Vice President Nurul Izzah Anwar and PKR Election Strategy Director Saifuddin Nasution had met him in Penang on July 20 to listen to DAP's reasons for a state election, he said.

He said during the meeting, justifiable concern about the state general election was raised, in that PKR risked losing more seats than DAP.

"A proposal was made for DAP to give up one or two of our existing state seats to PKR to make the proposal more acceptable to the PKR leadership, however we stated that this was not feasible," he said.

The Penang state legislative assembly has 40 seats, of which 19 are held by DAP, 10 by PKR, 10 by Barisan Nasional and one by PAS.

Local media recently reported Deputy Chief Minister II P. Ramasamy as saying that DAP had listed two options as a response to the two corruption charges filed against Lim, who is also DAP secretary-general.

The first option was to hold a snap election to gauge the peoples response to the charges against Lim, and the second was to wait for the next general election due in August 2018.

Lim was charged in the High Court on June 30 on two counts of corruption related to conversion of an agricultural zone to a housing zone as well as the purchase of land and bungalow at below market price.