Worst divide among Malays was during your time, PAS reminds Dr M

The worst divide among the Malay community had occurred during Pakatan Harapan chairperson Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s tenure as prime minister, a senior PAS leader said today.

PAS vice-president Idris Ahmad in a statement claimed that Mahathir is now pretending to forget about his own role in dividing the Malays.

“Not only were the Malays divided, even the original Umno was broken apart.

“Three deputy prime ministers and a deputy president had lost their positions,” he said in response to Mahathir’s latest accusations against PAS.

Mahathir had in a blog post yesterday once again claimed that PAS has created a divide among the Malays and even causing family members to fight with each other.

Among others, Mahathir insisted that teachings propagated by PAS had led to a situation where there could be two imams for one prayer, Muslim bodies buried at separate sites and Muslims accusing each other of being infidels.

“I came from the era before PAS was formed. There were the younger and older generations. But there was no divide among the Malays due to religion.

“For sure there was no one prayer with two imams, separate burial sites, and other things,” he said in the posting directed at PAS deputy president Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man.

Commenting further, Idris pointed out that prior to Umno’s formation in 1946, there was already a Parti Kebangsaan Melayu Malaya formed on Oct 17, 1945, in Ipoh.

“So which is the party that divided the Malays? PAS or Umno?” he questioned.

The Bukit Gantang MP also said there was nothing surprising about Mahathir making accusations against PAS.

“Tun had once said PAS was set up by the colonials. He tried to erase the history of how Umno was actually the one in the colonial’s embrace.

“At the time in 1948 when all left-leaning parties were banned by the British, Umno continued to thrive,” Idris said, adding that none had dared to correct Mahathir’s statement as at the time he had full control over the government.

In reiterating PAS’ often repeated stand that Mahathir should live to see the impact of his own doings, he noted times have now changed with the Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) chairperson no longer having his previous powers.

Idris, however, did not directly respond to Mahathir’s question on whether individuals who did not join PAS will be labelled as infidels.- Mkini