Kuala Besut by-election: Nik Aziz disregards party’s gentleman’s agreement to conduct civil campaign

(The Star) – Disregarding his party’s gentlemen agreement with Barisan Nasional to conduct a civil and clean campaign as a mark of respect for the fasting month, PAS spiritual leader Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat has called Umno an evil party that built mosques but whose members do not pray.

In his first appearance in the Kuala Besut by-election campaign, the former Kelantan mentri besar said the Barisan government and Umno had done a disservice to the Muslims by not giving much focus to religious development in the country.

Because of that, he said, the people were only busy working to build big houses and buy big cars but failed to fulfill their religious obligations.

And that is the tragedy under Barisan’s rule, he said.

“For 23 years as the Kelantan mentri besar, they accused me of failing to build mosques. Yes, Umno build mosques, but they don’t pray,” he said, drawing laughter from a large ceramah crowd at Kampung Beris Pak Abu near here Thursday night.

Unlike PAS, he said, Umno’s struggle, was only for the Malays and not to uphold and defend the sanctity of Islam.

“Even the name of the party is not in Bahasa Malaysia but English,” he said referring to the acronym Umno which came from its name ‘United Malay National Organisation’.

He also accused Umno of brainwashing the people’s mind to turn their backs to the truth.

At the start of the campaign period, PAS and Barisan leaders had pledged to conduct a clean and civil campaign in deference of the fasting month.

Earlier, former Royal Malaysian Airforce lieutenant Kol Mohd Nazali Mokhtar claimed the Government had failed to look after the welfare of the serving armed forces personnel and those who had left the service.

He said so bad was the treatment given to ex-servicemen that many were not able to make a decent living.

Some, he claimed, had to resort to stealing to survive.

Mohd Nazali repeatedly compared the treatment of the ex-servicemen to those in Bangladesh, whom he claimed were very well treated by their government.

He also questioned why the government did not provide land for agriculture and other economic activity to ex-servicemen.

“If the land given by state governments to Felda were to be divided into smaller parcels, each parcel could be given to 80,000 ex-servicemen,” he said while also urging airforce personnel at the nearby Gong Kedak Airforce Base to vote for PAS on polling day.