PAS spiritual leader and Kelantan Menteri Besar Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat's damning blows on Umno have inadvertently bruised an ally of the opposition coalition as well.

nik aziz angry 170609 Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) is hurt and slighted by the PAS leader who labelled Umno a socialist party because it rejected Islam.

In a statement today, PSM treasurer A Sivarajan said Nik Aziz should have gotten his facts right before shooting his mouth off.

"The spiritual leader should know better about socialism. Unfortunately, Nik Aziz too has fallen into the same trap of the Barisan Nasional government to demonise socialism.

"The ruling government has successfully condemned socialism and labelled it as anti-religion for a long time.

"Enough of demonising socialism. The wise PAS spiritual leader should understand this and refrain from accusing socialism of being anti-religion if he does not understand the true principles of socialism," he added.

Shielding the genuine principles

Sivarajan explained that socialism does not propagate anti-religion or violence, and that it is the only ideology and economic model that challenges capitalism.

"The capitalist BN government realises this, and thus will go all out to bad mouth socialism in an attempt to shield away the genuine principles of socialism from the rakyat," he said.

psm parti sosialis malaysia "In brief, socialism stands for a classless society where there will be no oppressor and oppressed. The resources of a nation should be shared with the rakyat and not controlled by a few capitalists.

"Socialism stresses on workers struggle so that the production wealth of the nation benefits the rakyat. Workers should be paid decent wages and their rights be taken care of especially during an economic crisis," he added.

Sivarajan said socialism is also against the privatisation of public facilities such as water, electricity, health and education.

The vexed PSM leader was responding to news reports on Nik Aziz's ceramah in Kelantan over the weekend where he had lashed out at Umno.

Apart from the 'socialist' accusation, the Kelantan menteri besar also described Umno as a deviant movement and likened it to the self-styled spiritual leader Ayah Pin.

Yesterday, Kelantan Umno Youth accused Nik Aziz of sedition and filed a police report over his remarks.

Nik Aziz: ceramah was not seditious

However the PAS spiritual leader today denied making any seditious remarks in his cermaha in Laloh, Kuala Krai on June 21.

He said that his remarks were not new as he has been repeating what he had often stated.

"It could be (interpreted as seditious) because I said nationalists and communists were the same in a figurative way.

"It is the same with deviationist teachings, (to me) all concepts that reject Islam, we call it deviationist.

"Not only now, during the time of Prophet Muhammad, his companion Abdullah Ubai was not given the honour of being a Muslim brother because he did not have faith in Islam," he told Bernama today.

On the police report lodged against him, Nik Aziz said: "It's okay, it's fine with us (PAS). We are ready to answer."