Top DAP, PKR leaders fail to show up at PAS muktamar

Pakatan Rakyat’s big guns from DAP and PKR were conspicuously absent at the opening of PAS’ 60th annual assembly in Batu Pahat, Johor, this morning. – The Malaysian Insider pic by Nazir Sufari, September 18, 2014.

In a departure from tradition, Pakatan Rakyat’s big guns from DAP and PKR were absent at the opening of PAS’s 60th annual assembly in Batu Pahat, Johor, this morning.

There was no sign of DAP national adviser Lim Kit Siang nor opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, an indication of how deep the wedge between PAS and its allies has become over the Selangor menteri besar crisis and the Islamist party’s internal struggle over its direction with the opposition pact.

PKR was instead represented by its vice-president Tian Chua and Youth chief Shamsul Iskandar Mat Akin, while the DAP sent its Kluang MP, Liew Chin Tong.

Earlier this year, PKR initiated the “Kajang move‎” to replace Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim with Anwar, following complaints over the menteri besar's tendency to make unilateral decisions in his administration of the state.

But Anwar was disqualified from contesting the Kajang by-election after the Court of Appeal convicted him on March 7 of sodomising his former aide, Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, in 2008.

Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail ran for the seat in her husband's place and was poised to replace Khalid as MB.

But ‎Khalid refused to step down and the embattled MB found allies in Hadi and the powerful PAS Shura Council, which declared he need not resign.

Khalid was eventually sacked from PKR on August 9 for defying party orders and on August 17, the PR Presidential Council agreed to nominate Dr Wan Azizah as the sole candidate for the top post in the state.

But Hadi continued to reject Dr Wan Azizah and submitted three names for the post to the Selangor Sultan, in a move that has threatened to split PR apart.

‎The PAS president also told party members on September 5 that Dr Wan Azizah was not qualified to become MB, as she did not have the ability to debate questions in Parliament and the state assembly.

The Selangor palace has yet to decide on the new MB and has deferred Khalid's resignation until his successor is chosen.

- TMI