Pakatan Rakyat has resolved to cease publication of all its component party newsletters following repeated threats by the Home Ministry, which controls their publication permits.

This was decided at the Pakatan leadership council meeting at Parliament today, which saw the coalition’s top brass deciding on holding back publication pending a meeting with Home Ministry officials.

NONE PAS’ Harakah , PKR’s Suara Keadilan and DAP’s Rocket has all been recently hit with show-cause letters for a variety of alleged offences.

"We will cooperate with the required procedures and guidelines. We will answer all show cause letters,” said PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim ( second from left ) during a press conference after the meeting.

“All official party organs will be suspended until next week when we will decide on the matter, pending our meeting with the Home Minister.”

Cooling-off period

Anwar said Pakatan is seeking a meeting with the home minister because he was the individual directly responsible for the publishing permits.

NONE Met later, DAP Youth chief Anthony Loke ( left ), who was also party to the council meeting, described the move to suspend publication as a “cooling-off period” and denied that Pakatan was bowing down to the government.

“If we clash with the ministry now, we will lose for sure. We need to discuss and look at the procedures and use the time to negotiate with the ministry and justify ourselves to them," he said.

PKR vice-president R Sivarasa told Malaysiakini that the cooling-off period does not mean that the coalition would stop efforts to reach out to the public.

“We have other means,” said Sivarasa, who was referring to a legal loophole that allows non-serialised publications to be printed without a permit.

Its first effort was to publish the newsletter titled Keadilan on Monday, but subsequent issues will have to be given a different title.

Gearing up for polls

Earlier at the press conference, Anwar refused to speculate on whether the threats on the three opposition newsletters were signs that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak was gearing for snap polls.

“(But one thing is for sure), the information (published in our media) is so effective that Umno feels stressed, and is pressured to take autocratic actions,” he said.

NONE Meanwhile, Anwar also announced that Pakatan is preparing for possible snap polls and the leadership council has instructed all of its election directors to prepare for the eventuality, especially in Sarawak.

Such efforts will include the inaugural meeting of the Sarawak Pakatan leadership council on Sunday, which will be attended by the top brass of all three component parties.

Met later, Sarawak DAP chief Wong Ho Leng said that the first order of business for the new council would be the allocation of seats, for polls which he believes is “just around the corner”.

"Expectations will be high, but we will expect to resolve difference between coalition members and agree to disagree," said the newly elected MP.

During the 2006 state polls, both DAP and PKR fielded candidates for several seats.

Fresh state polls must be called by mid-2012.

Editor called to Putrajaya

Meanwhile in the latest development, Suara Keadilan editor Dzulkarnain Taib has been called to give evidence at the Putrajaya district police headquarters at 2.00 pm Thursday July 15, on the Ministry's police report.

Dzulkarnain said ASP Rejaliak Angong contacted him at 5pm today to be present to give evidence under Section 112 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

"I will bring our attorneys and we will give full cooperation to the police. This is a form of pressure from the ministry, and we are ready to face them and fight for our right to print our paper," he said.

The police report was made by the ministry at 8pm on Monday night at the Putrajaya IPD under the Official Secrets Act 1972 (Act 88), which claimed that Suara Keadilan continued to publish despite an expired permit.