PAS rejects joining 'impure' govt under Anwar

PAS MUKTAMAR | PAS rejects the possibility that the party will join the Anwar Ibrahim-led federal government, said its president, Abdul Hadi Awang.

Hadi said this in response to Umno secretary-general Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki’s statement which sarcastically described PAS as planning to ‘purify’ the parties in the government and its leadership if it were to join.

“You can see the Pakatan Harapan government, who is in it... how do you expect it to be pure?

“Prisoners are there, ex-corruptors are there, the court clusters are there... how do we want to follow?

“If we want to clean excrement, we can’t go into the excrement bin,” said Hadi at a press conference after the opening ceremony of the 69th PAS Congress at IDCC, Shah Alam, Selangor, today.

The ‘prisoner’ referred to by Hadi is believed to refer to Anwar himself who was once imprisoned for sodomy offences before being pardoned by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong in 2018.

The ‘court cluster’ is believed to refer to a group of Umno leaders who were charged with corruption when Harapan and Bersatu formed the government under the leadership of Dr Mahathir Mohamad in 2018.

Earlier, Asyraf cynically said DAP would once again be “sanctified” by new fatwas as PAS had done when facing the 1999 and 2008 general elections together.

PAS and DAP were in the Barisan Alternatif coalition together during the 1999 general election and formed Pakatan Rakyat together soon after the 2008 election.

“There will be no more parties in the unity government, especially those with Muslim-Malays such as Umno, Amanah, and PKR, who will be labelled ‘new DAP’, ‘DAP sycophants’, or labelled ‘kafir’, ‘taghut’ and so on when PAS joins the unity government.

“(Prime Minister) Anwar Ibrahim will once again be promoted by PAS as a pure and clean Islamic leader as it was during the 10th, 11th, and 12th GEs,” said Asyraf.

He also said the claim that Islam and the Malays are threatened can no longer be used if PAS joins the government.

PAS was part of Pakatan Rakyat alongside PKR and DAP from 2008 to 2015 before it decided to end its alliance with the two parties.

The split in Pakatan Rakyat also led to the split in PAS which saw the formation of the Amanah party that promptly teamed up with DAP and PKR.

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