PAS will never get back non-Muslim support, says Mat Sabu
(TMI) – Mat Sabu said the east coast leaders from Kelantan and Terengganu might think they do not need non-Muslim support since they only interacted with Malays daily.
Mohamad Sabu is one of PAS’s most popular leaders, outside his party and among non-Muslims, that is. Internally, the party booted him out at the recent elections where he failed to defend the deputy president’s post. In the first of a two-part interview, Mat Sabu, as he is popularly known, mourns the passing of an Islamist party that enjoyed the support of non-Muslims for a period and fears it may never regain that trust.
Even if he is voted back into the PAS leadership, the Islamist party will never regain its non-Muslim support, said former deputy president Mohamad Sabu.
Better known as Mat Sabu and popular with the non-Muslim crowd, he also told of how hard he had to work to persuade PAS grassroots members to go out and rally with non-Muslims in earlier demonstrations led by electoral reform group Bersih.
Mat Sabu painted a bleak future for the only opposition party with a religious ideology that had contributed to the death of Pakatan Rakyat (PR).
He said there was now no remedy which could fix the situation for PAS to get back its non-Muslim support.
“Non-Muslims are disappointed and broken-hearted by the whole situation.
“Furthermore, PAS is now led by personalities from the east coast who rarely come into contact with Malaysians of other races and faiths,” he told The Malaysian Insider.
Mat Sabu said the east coast leaders from Kelantan and Terengganu might think they do not need non-Muslim support since they only interacted with Malays daily.
“They won’t feel it like we do here in Penang and Selangor. The Kelantan leaders had even said it is okay to do without PR because they were making assessments based on their own locations.
