Utusan pressures PAS into leaving Pakatan
By Clara Chooi, The Malaysian Insider
KUALA LUMPUR, May 4 — Utusan Malaysia heaped pressure today on PAS for its refusal to leave DAP’s side for the sake of Malay unity, warning the party that its fight for Islam was lost in Pakatan Rakyat (PR).
The Umno-owned daily dedicated much of its editorial content today to the issue and even front-paged a statement by Perlis Mufti Dr Juanda Jaya, accusing those against the merger proposal as “traitors of Islam”.
“The merger (between Umno and PAS) is in fact compulsory, particularly for the strength of Islam and Malaysia in general. All parties should make efforts in that direction,” the scholar was quoted as saying.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had recently reopened the doors to PAS to join Barisan Nasional (BN) and further the concerns of Malays and Muslims, telling the Islamist party it could not achieve its aims while partnering with DAP.
Najib’s invitation follows a recent call by Utusan Malaysia for a “1Melayu, 1Bumi” campaign to unite Malays against what the newspaper said was racial politics by DAP to stir up Chinese sentiment.
It also continues concerted efforts by Umno post-Election 2008 to get PAS to join forces in the name of Malay-Muslim unity.
The subject of unity talks between PAS and Umno had dominated the 2009 PAS Muktamar, which saw a number of leaders keen on exploring talks with Umno emerge as big winners.
Utusan Malaysia continued the prime minister’s efforts today, reminding PAS that such a merger would be for the good of Malay unity.
“Unlike PAS, the Umno top leadership, including Najib and his deputy Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, seems more open and positive towards this effort.
“Juanda also says that the al-Quran itself orders that the unity of Islam should be prioritised,” said the daily.
In an editorial by Zulkiflee Bakar, the daily told PAS that it was merely the junior partner in PR, trailing after DAP and PKR, both of which share similar ideals.
He claimed PAS was being used by DAP as the latter party’s ladder to success and added that if the Islamist party wanted to remain true to its ideals, it should heed Najib’s advice to leave PR.
Najib, Zulkiflee explained, had not urged PAS to leave PR specifically to join forces with BN or Umno.
“Najib only wanted to indicate to PAS or make the party aware that its partnership in PR is useless.
“This is because although DAP is a coalition partner, it will certainly not easily give way to PAS to proceed with its struggles,” he wrote.
He quoted National Council of Professors Politics, Security and International Cluster head Prof Datuk Dr Mohamed Mustafa Ishak as reminding PAS that DAP’s political goal was to achieve a “Malaysian Malaysia”.
Zulkiflee noted that Mohamed had claimed that such a goal was considered “dangerous” in the context of the Federal Constitution, Malays and Islam.
“But it looks like PAS’s top priority is seat numbers. Maybe PAS has grown lethargic in its struggles and so have its leaders who now want to cooperate with DAP,” he quoted Mohamed as saying.
DAP, he added, preferred to side with leaders with tainted backgrounds like Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim instead of PAS leaders.
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