PKR deputy president Azmin Ali has denied issuing a private apology to PAS for its stand against the Islamic party president Abdul Hadi Awang’s plan to table a private member’s bill on hudud.

 

Azmin stressed that the one-hour meeting held with PAS last night in Seberang Jaya was to clarify the recent "miscommunication" between the two opposition parties.

 

"There is no such thing as an apology. None of them asked for apology," Azmin, who is also Selangor menteri besar, said when met at SP Arena in Seberang Jaya last night.

 

He said this after PKR announced its president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail as the party's Permatang Pauh candidate.

 

“We met not to find fault with one another but to clarify matters," Azmin added.

 

Azmin said the meeting was attended by several top PAS leaders including deputy chief Mohamed ‘Mat’ Sabu, Penang state commissioner II Salleh Man and Permatang Pauh division chief Omar Hassan.

 

Omar had earlier said his division would boycott the by-election if PKR failed to apologise over the party's decision not to support Abdul Hadi's move to table a private member’s bill on hudud in Parliament.

 

Azmin said Mat Sabu, who chaired the meeting, reiterated the PAS' central leadership decision on April 13 that it would support PKR in the by-election.

 

Mat Sabu reported Omar himself had made preparations for the division's machinery to help PKR since March 12, added Azmin.

 

"For us, we are clear about their central leadership directive to members from four northern states - Perlis, Kedah, Penang and Perak - to work with us," he stressed.

 

‘Division takes instruction from Hadi’

 

When asked, Azmin said the issue of a boycott does not arise as in any party the grassroots take instructions from the party central leadership.

 

Despite the national leadership directive, Omar told the media that the division would only take instructions from Hadi.

 

To this, Azmin said: "That is their internal matter."

 

Azmin was responding to a report in theSun yesterday stating that PKR had issued PAS a private apology as well as an explanation on their statement against Hadi's private member’s bill on hudud.

 

PAS Permatang Pauh division committee member Jamsari Salleh told theSun that the division would now back PKR since Azmin had tendered the apology.

 

Nomination day for Permatang Pauh is today, while polling will be on May 7, with early voting on May 3.