Pakatan leaders to meet as Anwar prepares for jail, but will Hadi be there?

PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang has not been seen in public since the end of the Selangor MB crisis, which saw him going against Pakatan Rakyat partners PKR and DAP in the choice of the MB. – The Malaysian Insider pic, October 24, 2014.

The Pakatan Rakyat (PR) presidential council is to meet on the eve of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's final sodomy appeal next week to prepare for the possibility that their leader will be jailed.

Despite the gravity of the situation, questions abound as to whether PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang will be there.

The president of the Islamist party has shunned the public eye since the end of the Selangor Menteri Besar (MB) crisis last month, and has also been missing from the council’s meetings for over a year.

According to a PR secretariat member, the meeting is to be held while the current Parliament session is on, to ensure all leaders of the opposition pact are able to attend.

“We’ve informed everyone of the meeting, we hope that everyone can make it this time,” said the source.

However, according to the source, Hadi will likely be absent from the October 27 meeting as he will be in Kuala Terengganu the following day for a court hearing.

Hadi has to testify in a suit against him at the Kuala Terengganu High Court on October 28, the first day of Anwar's appeal in Kuala Lumpur.

PKR's former Bukit Besi candidate Mohd Shamsul Mat Amin had sued him for saying that there was a drug dealer among PKR candidates in the last general election, an excuse PAS had used to nominate their own candidates in seats allocated to PKR.

This resulted in a three-cornered fight in Bukit Besi.

Hadi is now in London, having departed for the UK capital on October 14 with other religious teachers for a programme there.

He was also absent from Parliament when Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak tabled the 2015 budget on October 10.

His failure to attend what is seen as the most important Parliament sitting of the year drew heavy flak from many quarters, especially social media users.

Many described him as a “truant” for not carrying out his duties as a parliamentarian elected by the people of Marang.

Anwar will appear at the Federal Court on October 28  and 29 for his final appeal against the Court of Appeal’s decision to sentence him to five years imprisonment on a charge of sodomising his aide, Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan.

PKR has begun mobilising its supporters to pressure the courts not to imprison Anwar, who was granted a stay of execution on March 7 pending the Federal Court’s decision.

Anwar’s supporters intend to gather across the country as well as make use of international diplomacy to ensure he is not thrown behind bars again.

They have taken advantage of Anwar’s personal ties with US President Barack Obama’s administration, Turkish President Raccip Tayyib Erdogan and Indonesian President Joko Widodo.

Anwar has been telling Malaysian media he was confident the Federal Court would overturn the sodomy verdict.

Hadi’s leadership of PAS has reached a crisis point, with many now openly criticising his decisions.

A prominent ex-PAS member, Tamrin Ghafar, had blamed the president as the cause of the problems faced by PAS now.

Tamrin (pic, right), the son of Umno veteran, the late Tun Ghafar Baba, recently quit PAS after joining the party two years ago, and has blamed Hadi and his supporters – the clerical faction he labelled the "Taliban" - for the reason behind his departure.

He has expressed disappointment with PAS's move to suspend two of its Selangor assemblymen who had supported PKR and DAP's positions on the choice of the MB ahead of a decision by PAS.

Tamrin had told the Mole.my that he was unhappy with Hadi's leadership.

“Of course. Hadi and his Taliban group is controlling the party,” Tamrin said in an interview on the news portal.

Accusations of PAS turning "Taliban" in its outlook and approach in cooperating with its PR allies issues have also been leveled by Shah Alam MP and PAS central committee member, Khalid Samad, who said the party's conservatives were out to remove leaders from the professional class.

“After declaring themselves to be clerics or the defenders of the ulama, this new group has begun attacking the leaders of old, especially those from the professional class who are pro-PR,” Khalid wrote on his blog.

- TMI