PAS denies endorsing state-level seat talks with Pakatan Harapan

(MMO) – PAS has rejected reports that its state chapters were authorised to independently discuss seat allocations with Pakatan Harapan (PH) parties.

Datuk Dr Khairuddin Aman Razali, the information chief for the Islamist party’s Ulama wing, said the decision reinforced during the latest PAS central working committee meeting was that the party was only allied to the Gagasan Sejahtera alliance.

“No, that is not right. The latest decision is PAS versus BN (Barisan Nasional) versus PH in GE14, and this has been stressed many times.

“We are now focusing on strengthening our Gagasan Sejahtera pact to fight (both) BN and Pakatan Harapan,” the Kuala Nerus MP told Malay Mail Online.

It was previously reported that the PAS leadership has allowed its state chapters to conduct independent negotiations with PH parties.

PH chief secretary Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah recently told Malay Mail Online that while PAS is not officially negotiating with PH, the Islamist party has purportedly allowed sanctioned at the local level.

In May, PAS officially ended all links or co-operation 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 consultative Syura Council accused PKR of violating the terms of its conditional co-operation 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 coalition could lead to multi-cornered contests in the general election which would be advantageous to the ruling BN, with some analyses predicting that the Islamist party could end up the biggest loser.