Pakatan still exists, Hadi insists

(Bernama) – PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang has  insisted that Pakatan Rakyat (PR) is not dead yet although DAP, its partner in the opposition pact, has announced that the coalition no longer exists.

Hadi also felt that DAP had no right to make the announcement on PR’s dissolution and cynically said that DAP did not understand the meaning of pact, causing it to act in a hasty manner.

“That was a personal statement. To me, it was also an inaccurate statement because one party only cannot be called Pakatan (pact). Pakatan must comprise several parties. Can open the Dewan (Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka) dictionary…if only one, can it be called Pakatan? No.” Hadi said this when met by reporters at his house after delivering a religious lecture at Rusila, here, today.

Pakatan Rakyat is a loose coalition formed on April 1, 2008 by DAP, PAS and Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) after the 12th General Election.

Asked whether he meant that Pakatan’s status still existed, Hadi said: “Yes, it does.” According to him, PAS had so far received no official statement on DAP’s action of disbanding PR, and also not from its other ally, PKR, and that what PAS had learnt on the matter was only from media reports.

“I looked at the meaning of pakatan in the ‘kamus Dewan’. That is why PKR has not made a statement to show that we have split,” he said.

Asked whether PKR was more inclined to be with DAP than with PAS, Hadi said he would not make a decision on this until PKR had done so.

He said it was up to PAS and PKR to make the decision. “If PAS disagrees, it can leave (PR), likewise for PKR. To date, PAS has not made any statement that it has quit Pakatan…and DAP has no right to expel any party from Pakatan.

“We love the racial unity as Malaysia has a plural society. So it’s up to the people to judge his (Guan Eng) statement,” Hadi said.

The PAS-DAP rift deepened when DAP secretary-secretary Lim Guan Eng announced recently that Pakatan Rakyat had ceased to exist following PAS’ decision at its recent 61st Annual Muktamar (General Assembly) to accept a resolution without debate, for the Islamist party to sever ties with DAP but chose to remain in PR.

DAP had earlier severed ties with Hadi over the issues of the proposed implementation of hudud in Kelantan, Hadi’s alleged plan to form a unity government with UMNO and his expressed support for Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.

PAS, on the other hand, was strongly against DAP’s relentness personal attacks against Hadi and his leadership, forcing it to sever ties with DAP.