Your decision makes it easier for us to form Pakatan 2.0 now, Amanah veep tells PAS

(Malay Mail Online) – Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah) vice-president Salahuddin Ayub could barely contain his enthusiasm today after PAS announced it will never work with the splinter Islamist party nor its former ally DAP.

Following the news, the former Kubang Kerian MP proclaimed that his party and the other two former founding partners of the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) pact could immediately set up version 2.0 of the federal opposition coalition.

“I am of the view that PAS’ decision will make it easier for Amanah, PKR, DAP and other NGOs to immediately form Pakatan Rakyat 2.0,” Salahuddin said in a statement.

“Amanah reiterates its stand and commitment that we are with the people in their demand for Pakatan Rakyat 2.0 to bring about a political change and save Malaysia,” he added.

PAS-owned paper Harakah reported party president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang saying Thursday that “there can be no political cooperation with traitors” with a reference to breakaway group Amanah, and pronouncing them to be “cursed by Allah”.

Other senior members of his team too have echoed the sentiment, saying PAS is willing to be a “loose partner” and cooperate with PKR, which had made an overture to bring the conservative Islamist party into a new opposition coalition to go toe-to-toe against the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) in the next general elections.

However, the PAS leadership said it would also not work with the secular DAP, a former ally-turned-bitter rival.

The three-way partnership that had succeeded in twice denying the BN its customary two-thirds control of Parliament in the last two polls crumbled a few months back due to a fallout between PAS and DAP over the Islamist party’s insistence on rolling out hudud in Kelantan.

DAP, which maintains that a religious criminal code is unconstitutional, has since insisted it will not join any coalition with PAS in it.