Leave if DAP stays with PAS, Karpal told

A former DAP vice-chairman is challenging Karpal Singh to leave the party should it maintain its alliance with PAS.

Anisah Shukry, FMT

DAP chairman Karpal Singh to should leave to save his reputation and high standing if he cannot convince his party to end ties with PAS, said Tunku Abdul Aziz Tunku Ibrahim.

“We have lost count of the number of times Karpal has bemoaned the fact that PAS leaders, his political allies, have remained defiantly unrepentant for their single-minded push for an Islamic Malaysia.

“Karpal should get his party out of the morally impossible situation because there is no future in a fragile, loveless and dishonest relationship with PAS, kept barely alive by mutual deception and political expediency,” Tunku Aziz said at a press conference today.

Aziz said Karpal was well aware the party was not with him and that the Bukit Jelutong MP was only regarded as the titular head of the DAP.

He said the real power was with secretary-general Lim Guan Eng and “his handpicked inner circle.”

He noted that Karpal’s colleagues were “embarrassed” by his comments regarding PAS, and had distanced themselves by suggesting they were made in his personal capacity.

“Given his high profile and standing in country, a chairman in an important political party, Karpal in my view does not enjoy the luxury of privacy in what he says and does. Karpal cannot have his chapatti and eat it too,” he said.

Tunku Aziz urged the DAP to come clean and admit that its chairman spoke for the party.

“If the DAP does not agree officially with what Karpal says, then the party agrees with the official position of the Islamic state that PAS has been unceasingly been propagating since the first day of its life.

“Malaysians urge DAP to come out openly and declare its official position on the Islamic state. Does it accept the Islamic state or does it reject it? he asked.

“It is a simple question requiring a simple, unvarnished answer. But it does not look as if DAP has the moral strength and courage to answer,” he added.