PARTI Sosialis Malaysia’s (PSM) deputy chairman S. Arutchelvan said the party decided to forgo any working relationship with Pakatan Harapan (PH) when the coalition decided to form an alliance with Barisan Nasional after the last general election (GE15).

He added that it had been difficult to hold negotiations with PH since.

In an interview with The Malaysian Insight, the activist recalled the party’s struggles. 

“When PSM was established in 1998, we couldn’t get registered and it was in 2008 –10 years later – that we managed to get ROS (Registrar of Societies) approval. 

“In 1999, we contested under the DAP logo. In 2004, when we wanted to contest under the DAP logo, DAP said the candidate at that time, Dr Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj, had to be a DAP member. So, we used the PKR logo instead.

“Of course, in 2004, we lost terribly and in 2008, PKR allowed us to use their logo in Sungai Siput and Kota Damansara. 

“Leading up to the 2018 general election, we tried to discuss the logo and seats, but we couldn’t find common ground. We also contested in 17 seats,” he said.

He said PSM called off its electoral pact with PH before GE15 after realising that the coalition could not be relied on to keep any deal with them.

“They did not have the desire for an electoral pact with us. We did send formal letters to them for negotiations, but we never received any feedback.

“When we asked Amanah, it said they have no trouble with PSM, in fact they like us. When we asked DAP, it too said it had no problems, but they did say that we need to go through PKR.

“But there was no final say on our request to hold a meeting,” he said.

“Our request was just for one seat, and we did not push them; we wanted to talk but the talk never came because they completely ignored us,” he added.

PSM ended its electoral pact with PH in October 2022, just a month before GE15.

Arutchelvan said his party had initially asked that former Sungai Siput MP Jeyakumar be allowed to defend his seat but would have accepted any three non-incumbent constituencies if that was not agreeable.

In 2008, Jeyakumar scored an upset victory, beating then-MIC president, the late Samy Vellu, to win the Sungai Siput seat, and successfully defending it in 2013.

However, a negotiation breakdown in 2018 led to a four-way clash for the seat, with both PKR and PSM contesting against each other as well as Barisan Nasional and PAS.

New alliance with Muda

For the August 12 state polls, PSM has agreed to work with Muda, after the latter had also found it difficult to negotiate with PH.

In a joint press conference, the leaders of both parties declared their hopes that the partnership would create real political change in Malaysia. 

PSM has so far named its secretary-general Sivarajan Arumugam as its candidate for the Kota Damansara seat, mathematics professor Darren Ong Chung Lee for Dengkil, and Sivaranjani Manickam for Meru.

Arutchelvan said the party would also announce more names in the coming days and hinted that he, too, may contest. 

The veteran activist, however, did not divulge which seat he was interested in.

He had previously stood as a candidate in Semenyih under the PSM banner.

Arutchelvan stated that PSM refused to work with PH in the state polls after it accepted BN as a partner.

“We have made it clear that we will not work with BN; that is our stand. So, when PH accepted BN, we agreed that we will not hold any discussion.

“Therefore, in the state polls, we go solo, but we found a similarity with Muda and decided that we will go in as partners and will not clash with each other,” he said.

Arutchelvan said Muda and PSM shared common interests such as taxing the rich and clean governance.

“With Muda, we decided to work together not as an electoral pact but as a cooperation. We can complement each other; they are tech-savvy and they make full use of social media.

“At PSM, we have on the ground experience; we are good at groundwork. The problem with PKR was that they are seat-oriented whereas we are policy-oriented,” he said. – July 20, 2023.