Three-cornered contest expected in Miri parliamentary seat

MIRI: The Miri parliamentary seat may see a three-cornered fight after PAS Sarawak expressed the opposition party's interest to contest in the urban seat in the coming 14th General Election (GE14).
Sarawak PAS Commissioner Jofrie Jaraiee said that PAS supporters in Miri City had requested that the party field a candidate for the Miri parliamentary seat.
"We will consider the request by the PAS supporters as well as members in Miri City if we have received a green light from the party headquarters to contest in Miri seat," he said in a press conference here today.
With Sarawak PAS joining the fray, Miri parliamentary seat, once a Barisan Nasional (BN) stronghold but lost to PKR in GE13, is likely to see a contest between BN, PKR and Sarawak PAS in the GE14.
With the latest announcement today, Sarawak PAS, upon approval from the party headquarter, will contest in six parliamentary seats in Sarawak.
On March 1, Sarawak PAS had announced that the party decided to contest in five parliamentary seats in Sarawak with a non-Muslim candidate expected to be fielded in one of the seats in GE14.
Jofrie was quoted as saying that the party had submitted the list of candidates for the five parliamentary seats to the party headquarters on Feb 26 for approval but declined to reveal the parliamentary seats that the party intended to contest.
He said all the proposed PAS candidates for the five seats are males, aged between 30 and 60, and included a non-Muslim candidate.
For the record, in the GE13, Sarawak PAS contested in five parliamentary seats but its candidates were defeated in all the seats and for the first time in the party's history in Sarawak, a non-Muslim candidate was fielded in the 2016 state election.
The party fielded former Iban recording artiste Clement Bayang in the Kakus state seat but lost in the Iban majority seat. — Bernama