PASIR GUDANG, Sept 10 — Parti Bangsa Malaysia (PBM) will contest a total of 14 seats, consisting of seven federal and seven state seats, for the upcoming 15th general election (GE15).

PBM’s president designate Datuk Zuraida Kamaruddin said the seats in question were all won by the party’s representatives in the previous 2018 general election before they formed the party.

“Among the seats that will be contested are the Ampang and Tebrau parliamentary seats. We are confident that our (PBM) candidate will do well for the upcoming polls as the reception we received was good prior to this through our recent nationwide tour.

“The people already know us because (some of the candidates) have been MPs for a long time,” Zuraida told reporters after a community event to assist 16 families at the Lian Hua San Thai Zhi Temple in Taman Kota Masai here today.

Present at the event was the party’s vice-president and Johor chapter chief Steven Choong Shiau Yoon, who is also the Tebrau MP.

Zuraida, who is also the Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister, was also among 11 PKR MPs who quit the party after the “Sheraton Move” which brought down the Pakatan Harapan government in February 2020.

She later joined Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) until May this year where she quit to join PBM that consisted mainly of former PKR representatives aligned to the party’s former deputy president Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali’s “cartel” faction.

Zuraida said despite PBM being a new and small party, it can be considered strong as it is helmed by experienced representatives.

However, the Ampang MP said the party needed to be part of a political coalition for GE15.

“PBM’s application to be part of the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition is important as the party aspires to be a part and participate in the Federal government after GE15,” she said.

On PBM’s immediate future direction and GE15 plans if BN rejects their application to join the coalition, Zuraida said it was still too early to decide.

“I don’t want to make a decision based on the view that PBM will go solo because my principle is that once the time comes, we will then make the decision,” she said.

In August, it was previously reported that BN chairman Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said that six political parties had applied to join BN.

However, the Umno president was reported to have said that the decision will only be made at a BN Supreme Council meeting.

BN secretary-general Datuk Seri Zambry Abd Kadir said that all applications to join the coalition are being looked into by the BN secretariat.