Under fire, PAS deputy says clueless about last-minute MB nominees
(Malay Mail Online) – PAS deputy president Mohamad Sabu said today he is unaware that the party had submitted its own candidate to be considered for the Selangor mentri besar post.
The PAS deputy president also said he was clueless about the reports stating that the party had not submitted Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and Azmin Ali’s name as its MB candidates after all.
“I want to state that what was mentioned by PAS secretary-general Datuk Mustafa Ali last night as reported by many media, that Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah and Azmin Ali’s name is not on the PAS candidate list…I have no knowledge of this,” he said in a statement today.
Other news reports, Mohamad said, quoted Mustafa as confirming that a PAS state executive councillor had been nominated as an MB candidate.
Mohamad did not refute the validity of the two reports, but said that this latest information was not conveyed to the PAS central working committee.
“We, the PAS central working committee, do not know of this new name because it was not decided in the PAS working committee meeting which handles the daily affairs and strategies of the party,” the PAS leader added.
Mohamad said that as far as he was concerned, PAS still stood by its latest August 25 decision to let the Selangor Sultan choose either one of the party’s nominees — Dr Wan Azizah or Azmin as MB.
PKR Youth chief Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad yesterday demanded PAS come clean on its confusing statements over the names it submitted to the Selangor palace for consideration as the next mentri besar, saying the people in the state deserve to know the truth.
The Seri Setia assemblyman noted the Islamist party’s secretary-general, Mustafa, has been issuing statements at odds with not only the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) consensus reached last month, but also conflicting with his previous remarks.
Nik Nazmi questioned too whether Mustafa’s recent admission of an earlier letter, in which three PAS leaders were nominated, exists.
Nik Nazmi’s statement comes in the wake of a new twist to the political drama over who will be picked to replace Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim as mentri besar of Malaysia’s most-developed state.
The DAP and PKR have been steadfast in their decision to nominate only PKR president Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah for the post, despite a royal order from the Selangor sultan asking the three PR parties to nominate more than two names each.
But PAS, in defiance of a PR presidential council decision on August 17, sent in three names yesterday.
Mustafa told PAS-controlled paper, Harakah Daily today that the party had sent three names to the Selangor palace for consideration.
He refused to disclose the names, only saying that one was from PAS while the other two were from PKR.
However, news portal Malaysiakini cited anonymous sources saying that PAS had offered the names of its own representatives and none from PKR, sending the whole plot deeper into the shadows.
