Wanted: Pakatan conventions for grassroots to air grouses

By admin-s On Oct 1, 2014

(MMO) – The Islamist party claimed its representatives lacked an avenue to raise issues with top leaders, prompting them to resort to platforms elsewhere to voice their grievances.

With a storm raging over Penang land issues, PAS called on Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leaders to bring back the pact’s conventions so that the three parties could swiftly and directly nip the problems that began at the grassroots.

Pointing to the latest controversy that resulted in the suspension of its Penang Island Municipal Councillor Iszuree Ibrahim, the Islamist party claimed its representatives lacked an avenue to raise issues with top leaders, prompting them to resort to platforms elsewhere to voice their grievances.

“It has been many years since the Penang PR leaders held a meeting, so long that Penang PAS was not able to raise any issues or discuss the rakyat’s problems with the PR state government.

“At state PR conventions, we would be able to raise local state issues such as the eviction of villagers from their land by developers in many villages in Penang,” PAS central land bureau chairman Mazlan Aliman told reporters at the Batu Uban village security and development committee centre late yesterday evening.

He said Penang PAS and his bureau had been trying repeatedly to meet with Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng to discuss issues pertaining to eviction of local villagers by developers, but without success.

“The eviction of villagers from their homes where they have been living for generations is a serious issue and it is affecting not only the Malay community, but different communities of all races,” he said.

Mazlan pointed out that there have been a total 25 villages in Penang where villagers who have been staying in their villages for a long time were evicted because the lands were bought by developers.

“The most recent case is the Siamese Village in Pulau Tikus where the villagers are also facing eviction so not only Malay villages are affected,” he said.

Penang PAS secretary Mohd Fadzil Kemi said they had submitted memoranda to the PR state government on the eviction issue of villages, once through the Deputy Chief Minister I Datuk Mohd Rashid Hasnon and again to Lim in July.

“Each time, we did not get any response from the state government so we don’t even know if the state government even considered our memorandum,” he said.