PAS should give Hasan Ali a pass. Sack him, if it isn’t too late.
Months ago, a non-partisan lawyer friend SMS-ed me that if Pakatan Rakyat (PR) didn't rein in Hasan Ali, PAS Commissioner for Selangor who leads the party's representation in the state government, the fledgling coalition will ultimately pay a hefty price in the next general election. Selangor, or even Malaysia, will eclipse and escape PR when push comes to shove.
Of late, there had been more Hasan Ali headlines in the local press, all for the wrong reasons.
From his holier-than-thou stance in fanning the beer-banning self-campaign to his recent unilateral empowering of non-enforcement officers from mosques to nab Muslims for consuming alcohol, and now, openly ordering the dissolution of Selcat (Select Committee for Competency, Accountability and Transparency) that was formed via the very legislative process he took part in and approved at the Selangor Legislative Assembly — these are indisputable proofs that Hasan Ali belongs philosophically more to Umno than PAS and Pakatan Rakyat combined.
Klang District Officer (DO) Bakhtiar Husin reared his ugly warlordism by accusing Selcat of political opportunism and shaming him in an inquiry into misused state allocations.
Hasan Ali swiftly jumped in to lend his support to the Bakhtiar. Embolden, Bakhtiar and a few other DOs collectively boycotted the state government’s Malaysia Day celebrations last Wednesday.
To put Selcat in context, its recent deliberations involved the ongoing public inquiry into the misuse of state allocations by former Barisan Nasional state assemblymen where a year's annual allocation was used up within weeks ahead of the March 8 general election.
It has been established through the testimonies of five Selangor DOs called up at the Selcat inquiry that Barisan Nasional state reps had used up RM500,000 annual state allocations in two months before the March general election last year.
Evidently, in attempts to rid Selangor of corrupt political practices, Hasan had misadventured to protect the corrupt.
It's now a foregone conclusion that Hasan Ali is not a solution but a part of the problem for the PR state government.
Nobody will discount the possibility Hasan will help Umno stage a Perak-like coup d'etat that Najib had openly called for.
Why Hasan must go
