PARTI Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) will decide this weekend whether to contest in the Cameron Highlands by-election, said Dr Michael Jeyakumar.

The PSM central committee member said the party would hold a meeting on Saturday to discuss the possibility and assess the party’s chances.

“This will be discussed at our monthly central committee meeting, whether to contest or not,” he told The Malaysian Insight. 

“We also have to look at our chances of winning, which don’t look very good.

“If there is also too much flak from people who are thinking we will split the votes and damage Pakatan’s chances, then we might not do it,” he said.

The Cameron Highlands federal seat will face a by-election after the election court declared it vacant in a petition against the MIC incumbent, C. Sivarraajh, after evidence showed that he had bribed Orang Asli voters in the run-up to the May 9 general election.

MIC president S. Vigneswaran said the party will not appeal the court’s decision, and that it will field Sivarraajh again, despite the graft findings against him.

In GE14, PSM’s B. Suresh Kumar polled only 680 votes, coming in fourth in a five-cornered fight for Cameron Highlands.

Sivarraajh won the seat with 10,307 votes, a 597-vote majority over M. Manogaran who stood on a PKR ticket and who had filed the election petition against the election results.

Manogaran had won 9,710 votes, PAS’ Wan Mahadhir Wan Mahmud 3,587 votes, and Mohd Tahir Kassim of Berjasa, 81 votes.

PSM is an ally of Pakatan Harapan but tussled with the coalition for seats previously when facing Barisan Nasional.

Jeyakumar has said before that PSM had officially applied to join PH’s predecessor, Pakatan Rakyat, but was given the cold shoulder.

The socialist party did not win any seats in GE14. Even Jeyakumar, who was a two-term MP for Sungai Siput, lost in GE14.

Jeyakumar said PSM may still contest in Cameron Highlands if it means getting its socialist message across to all Malaysians through its campaign.

“What we want is to create awareness of what is currently happening in the country, such as workers being overworked and other issues,” he said. – December 13, 2018.