'Penang BN will be given more than two seats' - Chow

GEORGETOWN - Penang Barisan Nasional (BN) will be given an additional two seats in the upcoming state polls.

Currently BN has two seats which is Permata Berangan and Sungai Dua while Pas won one seat which is Penaga

Penang Pakatan Harapan (PH) chairman Chow Kon Yeow said BN and its component parties have the potential to obtain more seats than what was currently held.

"They (BN) currently hold two seats, but they do have the potential to obtain more seats based on the seats that is currently being held by others (Pas and Bersatu).

"This is the space to distribute those seats to BN and they will have the potential to get more seats than what they have," he said while attending the Penang Economic Plan Launching Ceremony at the Penang Institute here on Monday.

Penang has 40 state seats and in the 2018 election PH won 37 seats while Bersatu was still a part of PH.

After Bersatu left the PH coalition and two PKR assemblymen were dismissed from the party and later joined Bersatu, the four seats, Seberang Jaya, Sungai Acheh, Teluk Bahang and Bertam fell under Perikatan Nasional (PN).

The four were expelled from the state assembly in March after the house passed a motion to force them to vacate their seats in accordance with the anti-party hopping law.

Chow confirmed that no other discussions at the state level has happened for seat allocations for the state election.

"Meetings at the central level is still being held where the decisions for the state l will be made there," he said.

PH and Penang BN previously held three meetings on the upcoming state elections with two meetings held in Penang and one in the capital.

However, no decisions were made in all three meetings.

Chow in May announced that BN would be given a chance to defend two of their seats in Penang.

He said the decision in a Central DAP Executive Committee meeting held previously decided that all the seats would return to the party and its incumbents.

He added based on the agreed principle that all seats will return to the incumbent party, PH will not request for seats from Umno or BN.