The Selangor government is still stable, Menteri Besar Mohd Azmin Ali has assured, amid fears it would collapse should PAS exit the state's ruling coalition.

Azmin reportedly told Oriental Daily that Selangor PAS chief Iskandar Abdul Samad had given him a written assurance of the Islamist party’s support for the state government.

“I had a meeting with Iskandar after Amanah was formed last year," he was quoted as saying in an interview published in the daily today.

“He gave me a written guarantee that Selangor PAS will support Pakatan Rakyat’s common policy framework, and will continue to uphold Pakatan Rakyat’s budget proposals and the Buku Jingga (manifesto)."

He reportedly said Iskandar’s guarantee had given him confidence.

The Pakatan Rakyat coalition that ruled Penang, Kelantan, and Selangor fell apart in June last year, due to bickering between PAS and DAP over hudud.

Disgruntled PAS members left the party to form Amanah on Sept 16 that year, and it later formed the new Pakatan Harapan coalition together with DAP and PKR.

While DAP has a strong grip of the Penang state assembly and PAS has the same in Kelantan, this is not the case in Selangor.

The state government controls 43 seats out of the 56 seats in the Selangor state assembly – 15 for DAP, 13 for PKR, 13 for PAS, and 2 for Amanah.

BN holds 12 seats and there is also one independent assemblyperson.

If Selangor PAS were to cooperate with BN, the two would have 25 seats in total compared to the state government’s 30 seats, giving the latter a slim five-seat majority.

However, Azmin reportedly assured that the coalition was working well together, and joked that this would remain the case as long as the media did not pit the component parties against one another.

As for DAP, Azmin pointed out that its secretary-general Lim Guan Eng had already issued two press releases last year backing Azmin’s stance on Selangor.

He assured that the promises made in the run-up to the 13th general election would be kept until the next election.

"Thank Allah, I’m very happy to know that the Selangor government is stable. This is important for drawing investment and foreign direct investment.

"They (investors) would have confidence to invest if they see stability,” Azmin was quoted as saying.

He added that the state government had a good working relationship with Selangor Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah, and that His Royal Highness was satisfied with the state administration.

Opposition parties need consensus

Meanwhile, the PKR deputy president said opposition parties including PAS must reach a consensus, even if this would be a difficult task.

“This was (de facto opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim’s) work before he went to jail. He was willing to go to Marang to meet PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang to discuss problems within the coalition.

"The atmosphere can be quite tense, but as political leaders, we have to accept this and consider all options with an open mind.

“I never said this would be easy, (but) if all the leaders want to embrace the people’s demand for change, for the parties to unite, we have to march together under a common agenda,” he said.

Despite his failed bid to avert a three-cornered fight between BN, Amanah, and PAS at the Sungai Besar by-election last week, Azmin believed there was still common ground to negotiate for an agreement.

He pointed to Iskandar’s statement following the by-election, where the PAS leader admitted the Islamist party cannot go into the 14th general election alone.

“I still believe that PAS and other party leaders all believe that opposition parties must come to a consensus, or they will make the same mistakes.

“If we can’t even settle a by-election and still face the same problems in the 14th general election, it would be a very difficult battle,” he was quoted as saying.

The Sungai Besar by-election was one of two by-elections held last week.

It saw BN’s Budiman Mohd Zohdi elected as the new Sungai Besar MP after securing 16,800 votes against Amanah's Azhar Abdul Shukur’s 7,609 votes, and Dr Abdul Rani Osman’s 6,902.