PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang said he does not want the post of prime minister should the opposition coalition win the 13th general election.

Hadi, who is also the member of Parliment for Marang, said the PAS struggle was to save the country and introduce a welfare state policy propagated by the opposition coalition.

“What is important is that we want to save the country and it does not matter who is the prime minister,” he told reporters after a meeting with the Menteri Besar of Kelantan, Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat at the Menteri Besar’s residence at number 10 JKR in Kota Baru today.

He was commenting on the statement by Umno supreme council member Mohamed Nazri Aziz that the change in the PAS leadership now dominated by the professional group showed that the party wanted to be in power in the opposition coalition, including Abdul Hadi who was keen to be the prime minister.

Mohamed Nazri said it was in fact an opportunity for Umno to grab more Malay votes in the coming general election after PAS changed its party policy not to defend the Islamic state and was now fighting for a welfare state which Umno had been propagating since independence.

Abdul Hadi also denied that PAS deputy president Mohamad Sabu was a liability to the party after being chosen by delegates in the election at the 57th PAS AGM last week.

“For Umno, Mohamad Sabu is an opportunity to bring down PAS. But for PAS Mohamad Sabu is a weapon to defeat Umno,” he said.

Abdul Hadi also refuted that party members were disappointed with the change in party policy when he announced that it was not time for PAS to set up an Islamic state, which was the party’s policy all these while, and instead wanted to set up a welfare state in line with the demands of the opposition coalition.

In fact, he said, the concept of a welfare state had the noble elements of saving the country as PAS would assimilate the concepts of ‘ halal ’ and ‘ haram ’ in its implementation.

- Bernama