Sabah Pakatan Harapan has made an offer to Parti Warisan Sabah to break the deadlock in seat negotiations and stem the war of words between them.

This followed a meeting between Sabah Harapan and national Harapan deputy president Muhyiddin Yassin last night.

Sabah Harapan deputy head Stephen Wong said the coalition was offering a 60-40 formula for seat distributions between them and Warisan.

The offer was for Warisan to field candidates for 60 percent of the 60 state seats and make way for Harapan to contest in 60 percent of the total 25 parliamentary seats.

Wong, who is also Sabah DAP chief, said the coalition hoped that Warisan would be willing to meet halfway.

"I'm optimistic that with this offer and a common vision, we can settle this," Wong (below) told reporters in Kota Kinabalu today, according to the Malay Mail Online.

In recent weeks, some Sabah Harapan leaders have been engaged in a war of words with Warisan leaders over how best to proceed with an electoral pact.

Sabah is the only state where Harapan has yet to formalise parliament seat negotiations.

Strangely, the announcement was made by Wong only after a Sabah Harapan press conference chaired by Muhyiddin. 

Muhyiddin, who had left when Wong made the announcement, said Sabah Harapan must finalise its candidates by end-January, said Warisan president Mohd Shafie Apdal was a "good friend".

Muhyiddin and Shafie are longtime comrades meeting first when both were in Umno.

In 2016, Muhyiddin was sacked from Umno while Shafie quit the party a month later. At the time, Muhyiddin was Umno deputy president and deputy prime minister while Shafie was an Umno vice-president.

Muhyiddin said Haparan's presidential council wanted the coalition's candidates to be finalised by the end of the month because an official announcement was needed soon.

"With regard to candidates, the names of all the candidates not just in Sabah but also the whole country will be announced after all seat negotiations have been completed," he said, according to another report from The Malaysian Insight.

Following today's announcement, Sabah Harapan will be inviting Warisan for a series of talks.

It is learned that Warisan has been engaging individual Harapan component parties on an informal basis.