PAS announces Sarawak state election bid, seeking alliances with native-bumiputra parties including PBDS
KUCHING: Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) has confirmed it will contest the upcoming Sarawak state election, with the party actively pursuing alliances with local native-bumiputra opposition parties ahead of what is expected to be an imminent poll.
Sarawak PAS Commissioner Arifiriazul Paijo made the announcement at a Ramadan gathering in Kuching, citing growing grassroots support as the basis for the party’s confidence.
He said Sarawak PAS’ membership has climbed to approximately 10,000, and that the party has identified four constituencies where its presence is strengthening.
“We are open to forming alliances with local parties who share in our struggle of wanting just and fair progress for all communities,” Arifiriazul said.
He specifically named Parti Bangsa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) as a potential alliance partner, describing the relationship between the two parties as amicable and built on shared community goals.
“We have good friends in PBDS and we can work together for the betterment of the local communities,” he added.
Arifiriazul also positioned PAS as a viable check-and-balance force in the state legislature, arguing that a stronger opposition presence would benefit Sarawak’s democratic process.
He noted that national PAS leadership is being kept informed of ground-level preparations for the coming polls.
Despite the party’s ambitions, PAS has yet to win a single seat in Sarawak — at either state assembly or parliamentary level — since it began contesting in the state.
The election itself is widely expected to be called shortly after the Gawai Dayak celebrations in June.
Sources within the ruling Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) coalition have indicated that dissolving the state legislative assembly in early July would allow polling to take place between mid-July and early August, well ahead of the assembly’s expiry on December 18 this year.
“The GPS will not wait until the very last to call for the polls,” one GPS insider noted, adding that the coalition is confident of returning with a strong majority across the current 82 state constituencies.
The source also pointed to the Gawai festive season as a factor likely to generate goodwill among the Dayak community, which forms the largest voter bloc in the state.
GPS has been accelerating grassroots-level project rollouts, backed by sizeable financial allocations, as part of what observers see as pre-election groundwork.
The coalition currently holds 80 of the 82 state seats, with the remaining two — Padungan and Pending — held by Sarawak DAP.
