PKR vice-president Xavier Jayakumar has blamed the lack of unity in Pakatan Harapan as the catalyst behind DAP losing its five seats and costing the opposition coalition other potentially winnable seats in the Sarawak election.

"It was unfortunate that the situation had to come to this. I wish to stress that coalition politics requires parties to work together to get the best results.

"It is clear that the lack of unity was a factor in the loss of five incumbent seats for DAP and it could have contributed to the losses in several of our winnable seats as well.

"This is evidence that the voters in Sarawak disapprove of three-corner fights among coalition partners," he said in a statement this evening.

Jayakumar made reference to DAP and PKR's clash in six constituencies, all of which were captured by BN.

"I regret that the blame game has started at the DAP camp hours after the results were announced, and this should stop immediately.

"If all the facts are laid on the table, it will be clearly seen that DAP also lost their deposits, and they came behind PKR in three of the disputed seats, ie Mulu, Murum, and Simanggang," he pointed out.

He said the coalition partners should accept the election results as a lesson.

"We must look towards preparing for the 14th general elections as a united coalition for the benefit of the rakyat of Sarawak and Malaysia as a whole," he said.

DAP was defeated in all the bumiputera seats it contested, on top of losing five of its 12 urban seats to BN.

PKR maintained the status quo, retaining three seats.

DAP had contested in 31 seats while PKR contested 40 seats.