Pakatan keeps candle lit for PAS

((MO) – Pakatan Harapan continues to hope that PAS will join its seat negotiations for the next general election, despite the Islamist party’s decision to end all links with the pact’s parties.

Its secretariat council further said the invitation was also open to all Opposition parties notwithstanding the PAS Syura Council’s decision to adopt the motion to end ties with PKR last month.

PKR was the only Pakatan Harapan party that still had any semblance of cooperation with PAS, which had already rejected DAP, Amanah and Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia.

“Before the Muktamar decision, Pakatan always has the big picture in mind and included all opposition parties.

“Not just PAS but all other Opposition parties. Pakatan Harapan is open to negotiation from all parties,” Pakatan Harapan chief secretary Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah told a press conference today.

He said the offer stood for as long as PAS considered itself a part of the federal Opposition.

Saifuddin later said the PKR political bureau will meet to discuss the future of the Selangor government with regards to the three PAS lawmakers that remain as executive councillors despite rejecting PKR.

“We have taken a decision to wait the outcome of the PKR’s decision tonight,” he said adding that the matter would then be referred to the Pakatan Harapan presidential council.

PAS last week officially ended all links or cooperation with PKR, with the Islamist party’s powerful Syura Council deciding that the move was necessary in order to defend the party’s Islamic agenda.

The Syura Council accused PKR of violating the terms of its conditional cooperation with PAS, failing to support the Islamist party in its Islamic agenda, and working against it in two by-elections last year.

PAS’s separation from the larger Opposition could lead to multi-cornered contests in the general election that would be advantageous to the ruling BN, with some analyses predicting that the Islamist party could end up the biggest loser.