S'WAK POLLS DAP national publicity secretary Tony Pua has refuted the remarks by PKR's political bureau member Dr Mansor Othman on the dispute regarding Sarawak electoral seats between the two Pakatan Harapan partners.

Mansor had yesterday said that PKR deputy president Azmin Ali kept engaging DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng on the disputed five seats, that is Mulu, Mambong, Ngemah, Murum and Simanggang.

"That is untrue. While Lim was informed via third party sources repeatedly over a two-week period that Azmin intends to call him to renegotiate the seat allocation agreement, Lim never received any calls from Azmin during the period.

"Lim only received a call from Azmin on the Sunday night before nomination was to be carried out the next morning," Pua said in a statement today.

He also responded to Mansor claiming that Lim refused to consider any amicable resolution to avoid three-cornered fights.

Pua reminded Mansor that an amicable solution had already been achieved where both parties compromised, a decision that was endorsed by the Pakatan Harapan presidential council on April 11.

"Any one-sided attempts to renegotiate what PKR compromised without taking into consideration what the DAP has compromised earlier can never be acceptable to any party," he said.

"What is the point of both parties spending RM108,000 on the Merdeka Centre surveys if the parties do not abide by the outcome?"

Setting the record straight, Pua also said that Azmin only asked to take an additional three seats from DAP, that is Mulu, Murum and Mambong.

This is why they were shocked when PKR fielded candidates in five seats including Simanggang and Ngemah, he said.

By fielding PKR candidates in those seats, he explained, Azmin surely knew that Pakatan Harapan's chances of winning would be reduced to "practically zero".

He also said that Mansor ( photo ) made it sound as if the top PKR leaders had signed the seat settlement agreement under duress from Lim, when he said "both Azmin and (PKR vice-president) Nurul Izzah Anwar were opposed to signing the note".

"That would certainly be a sight to see", Pua said, calling the notion "at best laughable".

He also refuted Mansor's remarks that "PKR and DAP failed to reach a consensus on the seats, but agreed to resolve this in the next round of negotiations and work towards one-to-one contests with BN. Hence, in the presidential council it was announced that PKR and DAP had reached consensus on one-to-one contests."

Negotiations amicably resolved

Mansor must have been misled, Pua said, adding that he was present throughout the meeting and Mansor's account was off the mark.

During the meeting, Nurul Izzah had made the "happy announcement" that all seat negotiations between DAP and PKR have been amicably resolved, Pua said.

Azmin was also at the meeting, he added, and the Selangor menteri besar did not voice a word of objection.

The meeting decided that they would leave it to their respective Sarawak chapters to announce the actual seats which have been agreed upon, he explained.

Despite all his refutations, Pua lamented that the multi-cornered fights in six seats in Sarawak are regrettable.

"However, the milk has been spilled and all parties should move forward with the campaign against BN and not be bogged down by the internal dispute on these six seats.

"We have 74 other seats which we are fighting BN. We have 10 full days of campaigning to go and it will be best to focus our guns on BN," he said.