BIGGEST JOKE: They don’t like us sticking to 'principles' - Hadi

KUALA LUMPUR - The Islamist principles which gave birth to PAS are now being used against it by the party’s secular-minded partners in Pakatan Rakyat, newly re-elected party president Abdul Hadi Awang said yesterday.

Speaking at the closing of the party’s general assembly, he accused Pakatan Rakyat partners of trying to use the party’s principles against it, and also of trying to manipulate the party’s elections for their own advantage. He criticised Pakatan leaders for disparaging his party’s relationship with Umno members and accused them of being jealous.

He said PAS continued to be the target of criticism within Pakatan Rakyat because the party’s Islamic struggle is a different ideology from the socialism and pragmatic secularism practised by the DAP and Parti Keadilan Rakyat.

“Ideological differences should not pose a problem, but we continue to be the target,” he said, Bernama reported.

He said PAS had never betrayed its principle of tahaluf siyasi (political cooperation) with its coalition partners, but they had tried to interfere in the party’s elections and this interference had damaged the cooperation.

He pointed out that PAS had never committed misconduct in Pakatan Rakyat by poaching members and elected representatives of other parties but another party had done that to PAS.

He did not name the party, but this was seen to be a reference to PKR and its internal power struggle last year when party leader Anwar Ibrahim, with the cooperation of the DAP, tried to oust PKR’s then vice-president Khalid Ibrahim from his position as Selangor Menteri Besar. The initial plan to replace him with Anwar failed when Anwar was jailed for sodomy, but Anwar’s wife, PKR president Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, was to be named in his place.

Abdul Hadi gave Khalid his support, and four executive councillors from PAS stayed by Khalid’s side to keep his government going when assembly members from DAP and PKR deserted Khalid. But two PAS assembly members showed support for Wan Azizah in defiance of Hadi’s orders.

The PAS president also accused PKR of belittling the PAS struggle to implement hudud criminal law in Kelantan, when the party instructed its sole assemblyman there not to vote in favour of a new law allowing hudud. Abdul Hadi said none of the PAS members had rejected the Islamic criminal law and they would not have joined the party if they did.

On his party’s relations with Umno, Hadi criticised Pakatan leaders for their disparaging remarks. “There are people jealous of us, like a wife who does not let her husband go to the market because she is afraid that he would be charmed by the saleswoman. Just like some people do not want us to go and see Umno. It is haram (forbidden). But that is not our approach,” said Hadi.

The DAP has frequently accused PAS of succumbing to Umno’s gambit of a “unity government” and support for hudud as a means of splitting the Pakatan Rakyat. The DAP severed ties with Hadi after he tabled a motion for federal laws to enforce hudud in Kelantan.

In an allusion to the DAP’s attacks, he accused the party of trying to influence the PAS elections, in which a slate of ulama-backed candidates swept all but one seat on the central working committee, handing severe defeats to leaders friendly to the DAP and PKR.

“We have never interfered with other parties’ internal matters but others want to interfere with us, even campaigning in our elections,” he said, according to Malaysia Insider. “We don’t steal other people’s assemblymen but they steal ours.” - FMT