PETALING JAYA, Nov 3 — PKR deputy president Rafizi Ramli today disclosed that he has recommended that incumbent Sungai Buloh MP R. Sivarasa defend his parliamentary seat in this general election.

Rafizi, who is also the party’s election director said the internal candidate committee also held the same view that Sivarasa be fielded there for a second term instead of having relative newcomer Datuk R. Ramanan who was formerly with MIC.

"I and the candidate committee suggested that Sivarasa be retained. But it is in the hands of the president,” he told a press conference at the PKR headquarters here.

PKR president Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim had yesterday indicated that there would be no more changes to the line-up of electoral candidates after Barisan Nasional announced caretaker health minister Khairy Jamaluddin as its Sungai Buloh hopeful.

"In my opinion, it is better to keep the candidate so that this campaign can run well.

"We have exhausted the internal process in PKR for the candidate.

"The finality is with Datuk Seri Anwar and we have to move on as the party,” Rafizi added.

But he also said that PKR has made it a requirement for all its candidates to submit an asset declaration form and sign an agreement to be loyal to the party and to serve the public should they be elected.

As such, he urged Sungai Buloh voters to back Ramanan as the Pakatan Harapan candidate.

Rafizi said he respected Khairy as the only Umno politician who did not resort to racial politics in the past 10 years.

But he claimed that voting for Khairy in this election would hurt the latter’s leadership potential in the long run, insinuating that Umno president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was moving to remove internal critics within his own party.

"Smile and take photos with KJ, but please don’t vote for him.

"It’s almost like putting a sword in Zahid’s hand to cut him off,” Rafizi said.