PAS Central committee urges party to reconsider ties with coalition
(The Star) – The tense relationship between PAS and PKR turns worse with several PAS central committee members urging the party leadership to discuss the possibility of pulling out from Pakatan Rakyat at its Aug 10 meeting.
The meeting was called to thrash out matters on the Selangor state leadership and on the mentri besar’s post.
PAS central committee member Dr Mohd Zuhdi Marzuki posted on his Facebook page yesterday that several of his counterparts wanted to bring up the matter of PAS pulling out of Pakatan.
He made news after a screenshot of a WhatsApp group chat began circulating on July 28. In it, he outlined his idea of PAS quitting Pakatan and cooperating with Umno assemblymen to form a simple majority to retain Selangor.
“The motion for PAS to leave PR received strong support from no less than 10 members. A good number of them are very close to Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim,” Dr Mohd Zuhdi claimed yesterday.
He claimed this group of members wanted the matter to be discussed before any talk was held on the Selangor MB crisis.
The group chat followed a suggestion by another senior PAS leader that they leave Pakatan, he said.
“Details of my ‘scenario analysis’ should PAS leave PR was then leaked out,” he said, adding that some members felt it was better for PAS to be independent to allow members to be free to criticise.
Dr Mohd Zuhdi, who is also PAS’ research centre operations director, however, claimed that he was not part of the group which supported the motion for PAS to quit Pakatan.
He believed the WhatsApp conversation was leaked by someone from within the group chat to smear his name after his strong criticism of Anwar on the Selangor MB crisis.
On Sunday, Dr Mohd Zuhdi, in his Hari Raya greeting to Anwar, expressed “sincere hope” that the Opposition Leader retire from politics as he had affected many people with his “personal agenda”.
In separate Facebook postings that day, he questioned Anwar’s authority as Opposition Leader, citing six announcements made by Anwar as examples of his “dictatorship”.
This included the Kajang Move and the naming of Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail as a Selangor MB candidate.
PAS research centre executive director Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad said Dr Mohd Zuhdi’s views in the WhatsApp group which went viral, was a private conversation on an informal basis.
“I would like to stress that the scenario described by Dr Zuhdi does not reflect PAS’ stand or represent the findings of the PAS Research Centre,” he said in a statement yesterday.
In a related development, PAS secretary-general Datuk Mustafa Ali issued a gag order to members via Harakah Daily, telling them not to voice their views on the Selangor MB leadership pending the central committee meeting on Aug 10.
