Stop antagonising Pakatan, DAP tells PAS leadership

(Malay Mail Online) – PAS’s top leaders need to start being team players and contribute to the future direction of Pakatan Rakyat (PR) if they hope to be considered a viable alternative to take over Putrajaya, a DAP leader said today.

Puchong MP Gobind Singh Deo said it is pointless for the PR leadership council to hold any meeting when the person who holds the power to veto any decision in PAS, its president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang, continues to sit out the high-powered meetings.

Gobind said the PAS president was behaving as though he was the “all supreme” in PR “who will decide when and what, if at all, anything will be done”.

“This kind of attitude is a show of total and utter disrespect not only to the component parties of PR but more so to the many Malaysians who expect that leaders in PR will put their hearts and minds together to build an alternative party which is capable of leading this country in place of BN (Barisan Nasional),” Gobind said in a brief statement.

“But instead of reassuring people, we find a repeat of what we saw of Hadi during the Selangor mentri besar crisis,” he added.

Abdul Hadi was in the thick of the Selangor mentri besar debacle just months earlier, when he consistently went against the collective decision of the PR leadership to endorse PKR president Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail to replace the-then Mentri Besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim.

The PAS president, backed by his party’s powerful syura council, had insisted on retaining Khalid, driving a deep wedge in fissures within the nascent opposition coalition.

The situation has since simmered down with the eventual appointment of PKR deputy Ppresident Azmin Ali to the coveted post, but Abdul Hadi has remained aloof from his PR colleagues, saying last Sunday that his attendance at PR meetings is his own prerogative.

Hadi was responding to a resolution passed by DAP’s central executive committee (CEC) last week, urging Hadi to attend the federal opposition pact’s meetings as he has been absent for months.

Yesterday, Kelantan deputy Mentri Besar and PAS leader Datuk Mohd Amar Nik Abdullah was quoted by Malay daily Utusan Malaysia as claiming that DAP’s resolution was a ploy to push PAS out of the opposition coalition and told DAP to stay out of its party affairs.

Gobind, today, stressed that far from trying to push PAS out of PR, the DAP is seeking more active engagement from the Islamist party’s top leader.

“We are not pinning things down to (Abdul) Hadi personally but from what we see in the past, it is clear that PAS is governed by one man and he is (Abdul) Hadi. He is able to overrule anyone or any body in the party.

“So, there is nothing wrong in asking for him to be present at meetings if decisions must be made over the future of PR.

“There is just no point in having meetings if the main person doesn’t bother attending and all discussions are on a “we will consult our leader basis” and nothing is firmed up in the end,” Gobind said.