Mustafa: PAS will stay with Pakatan
PAS secretary-general Datuk Mustafa Ali today insisted that the Islamist party will not betray the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) coalition by forming a merger with Umno.
Mustafa told reporters at the PAS headquarters here that it was never in the nature of the party to “backstab its buddies”.
“Never in our track record have we gone back on our word,” he said.
Mustafa was commenting on media reports on a meeting between Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and PAS spiritual advisor Datuk Nik Aziz Nik Mat to discuss the issue of unity of the “ummah”.
Muhyiddin had said he welcomed the gesture by Nik Aziz, who is also Kelantan mentri besar, to meet and discuss the issue further.
PAS had been a component of the Barisan Alternative (BA) coalition formed after the 1999 general election, along with the Parti Rakyat Malaysia, Keadilan (now PKR) and DAP.
DAP withdrew from the coalition in 2001 over ideological differences with PAS, and BA was disbanded following the 2004 general election.
Following the opposition’s success in Election 2008, the three parties — PKR, DAP, and PAS — reunited to form the informal pact now known as Pakatan Rakyat and denied Barisan Nasional its customary two-thirds majority in Parliament.
Today, Mustafa said he did not think the meeting between Muhyiddin and Nik Aziz would touch on the PAS-Umno merger, instead saying that PAS had three levels of engagement with all political parties.
