Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man has accused Dr Mahathir Mohamad of barking up the wrong tree with regard to the latter's incessant attacks on the Islamist party and its president Abdul Hadi Awang.

The PAS deputy president also found it puzzling that Mahathir is training his guns on PAS and Hadi more compared to Umno and Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

“What is he dissatisfied about?

“This country is in ruins not because of PAS' administration but (as the result of) Umno and BN (at the helm),” he told Malaysiakini.

Tuan Ibrahim was commenting on Mahathir labelling Hadi a “traitor” following PAS' announcement that it would contest in 130 parliament seats in the coming general election.

Speaking to reporters in Putrajaya this morning, the former premier accused the PAS president of colluding with Najib to split opposition votes.

However, Tuan Ibrahim begged to differ.

Logically, he said, PAS is not the traitor nor the catalyst for the split in the opposition and that the problem stemmed from the formation of new parties.

However, it is unclear if Tuan Ibrahim was referring to the fledgeling parties Amanah and Bersatu or all, including the likes of DAP and PKR.

Amanah, a PAS splinter party, was formed in the aftermath of Harapan's predecessor Pakatan Rakyat's collapse in 2015 due to DAP and PAS crossing swords.

Whereas, Bersatu was formed by Mahathir and former deputy prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin in 2016.

Tuan Ibrahim pointed out that PAS was the first opposition party in Malaysia, whose struggle was to uphold Islamic policies and an Islamic system.

“Therefore, there should not be other (new) opposition parties because this is the cause of the split in opposition votes.

“If you wish to use the term 'pengkhianat' like Mahathir, then it is the existence of this new party which is the 'pengkhianat',” he added.

PAS has repeatedly denied working with Umno apart from issues related to race and religion.