SHAH ALAM: It is a little too late for Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) to review its ties with PAS even after the Islamist party accepted responsibility for causing PSM president Dr Nasir Hashim to lose the Kota Damansara state seat.

PSM secretary-general S. Arutchelvan said PAS should have stopped its candidate Ridzuan Ismail from contesting for the same seat to avoid a three-cornered fight between PSM, PAS and Barisan Nasional.

“Why talk about accepting responsibility only now?

“They should have acted against the errant PAS candidate much earlier,” he said yesterday.

Despite PAS ordering Ridzuan to withdraw from the contest, the party machinery continued to campaign for the seat.

“We consider it a serious sabotage which resulted in PSM losing although it contested under the PKR logo,” he added.

Arutchelvan, who faced similar problems with PKR when contesting in Semenyih, said PSM would be holding a meeting on Friday to discuss the party's performance in the polls, including reviewing its ties with Pakatan.

Barisan won both the Kota Damansara and Semenyih seats.

Selangor PAS deputy commissioner Khalid Samad said a report would be lodged with the party leadership over Ridzuan's conduct.

“Let this be a lesson for us to not be big-headed, thinking that one can win alone.

“In the end, we betrayed the people's trust,” he said.

Khalid added that Pakatan would have won the Kota Damansara seat had Ridzuan backed Dr Nasir since the total number of votes both of them received exceeded 22,000.

Meanwhile, PKR deputy president Azmin Ali said he appreciated Khalid's statement and added that it reflected the spirit of openness in Pakatan.

“PKR will not point fingers and blame PAS,” he said.

For more election stories, please visit The Star's GE13 site

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