PARTI Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) is getting feedback on voters’ sentiment in Cameron Highlands before deciding whether to contest in a by-election there, said Dr Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj.

The PSM central committee member said the party held a meeting yesterday to discuss the matter but had yet to decide on a plan of action.

“There are several issues we have yet to discuss, like whether taking part will help us promote our criticism of Pakatan Harapan’s performance in terms of socio-economic issues.

“We are quite happy with the way they (PH) are handling governance issues, such as institutional reform. That part of it is pretty good.

“But we have got a lot of problems on the socio-economic side, such as minimum wage and foreign workers’ issues,” he told The Malaysian Insight today.

The former Sungai Siput MP said they were engaging members in Cameron Highlands in a bid to gauge the party’s chances of winning there.

“The by-election date has not been announced yet so there is no hurry. There is still time,” he added.

The Cameron Highlands seat was declared vacant after an election court found sitting MP C. Sivarraajh of MIC guilty of bribing Orang Asli voters in the run-up to the May 9 general election.

In GE14, PSM’s B. Suresh Kumar polled 680 votes and came in fourth a five-cornered fight for the seat.

Sivarraajh won the seat with 10,307 votes, a 597-vote majority over PKR’s M. Manogaran, who garnered 9,170 votes.

PAS’ Wan Mahadhir Wan Mahmud got 3,587 votes, and Mohd Tahir Kassim of Berjasa, 81 votes.

Yesterday, the Election Commission confirmed that a by-election will be held for the Cameron Highlands parliamentary seat after Barisan Nasional decided not to appeal against the court decision to declare the seat vacant. – December 16, 2018.