Sarawak PKR chief Baru Bian has hit out at the state DAP for its open attacks on his party, urging his counterpart to rein in errant party members.

"I wish to ask Chong Chien Jen to rein in his members, and stop them from making incendiary and rash statements about our members and our leaders in West Malaysia.

"These irrational statements by his members are detrimental to the image of the opposition in the eyes of the public and I am concerned that they may reflect negatively on his role as leader of the party," said the Sarawak PKR chief in a statement.

He said the coming Sarawak election will be the most challenging for the opposition coalition, urging DAP to show some discipline and wisdom.

"PKR is disappointed that Betong and Sri Aman DAP (branches) have seen fit to make unwarranted and peevish attacks on our members and leaders.

"It is perhaps a sign of increasing panic among the members of those branches in the lead-up to our seat negotiation meeting later in the week," Baru said.

The two DAP divisions have proposed candidates in seats which overlap with those claimed by PKR. Both parties have announced candidates in several seats for the upcoming Sarawak election, even before the start of the Harapan seat allocation talks slated for later this week.

Baru labelled the DAP attacks as counter-productive, which would only place the opposition coalition on a platter as fodder for the BN parties.

He said there are proper channels within Harapan for members and aspiring candidates to air their complaints, instead of throwing brickbats at each other.

"DAP has been on a one-sided warpath against us for many months now and we have refrained from responding in kind.

“We have made it plain that our aspiring candidates have had to meet our strict KPI requirements to prove their winnability and these documented KPIs will be put on the table during our seat negotiation meetings," Baru said.

He advised DAP’s aspiring candidates to argue their own merits in the coming talks instead of shooting off press statements.

"Let us bring all our issues to the table later this week and negotiate rationally and in a mature manner, in the spirit of co-operation and mutual respect. We must never forget that we are fighting the BN and not each other," said Baru.