Mat Sabu: PAS leaders demonise me, but secretly woo me

Two years after the formation of Amanah, party president Mohamad Sabu revealed today that there were PAS members and leaders who would secretly invite him to rejoin them, despite publicly demonising him in their speeches.

In his winding-up speech at the second National Amanah convention in Alor Setar, Mohamad said he was often greeted by central PAS leaders who bumped into him at the airport, and they treated him well.

"We (Amanah) must understand the difference between the party and people, the people in PAS are our friends.

"I always bump into them at the airport. We know they always condemn us in their speeches, but at the airport, from far, they will come to shake my hands and say, 'How are you? Keep up the fight'," said Mohamad, who is popularly known as Mat Sabu.

"(They will) say 'Bang Mat, come back (join PAS)' but I told them, I won't fall for their sweet promises anymore," he added to laughter from the floor.

Mohamad also recounted how, in his 38 years with PAS, he had served to collect donations to build up the party's operations centres and felt disappointed because the buildings are now used as places to condemn him.

"Imagine how many years we had been giving ceramah sessions. So, if not a lot, even a little bit, we would have been involved in collecting funds and donations.

"If we want to see in Shah Alam, there is a Padang Mat Sabu, even Google recognises Padang Mat Sabu in Section 27 Shah Alam... This shows our contributions," he said, adding that he would sometimes feel sad when looking at a PAS operations centre and reflecting on the current scenario.

Platforms to hurl abuses

"How those places have now become platforms to hurl abuses at us, particularly from the young (in PAS) who never knew about our struggle.

"The young ones who don't know (Mat Sabu), they just attack. When they refer to Amanah as 'PanDAP' and DAP as 'DAPIG'...is this the character of a preacher?" Mohamad lamented.

Since Amanah was formed in 2015, top PAS leaders and their supporters have declared the party and the DAP as its enemy.

However, some individual leaders within PAS have remained on friendly terms with Amanah.

Pokok Sena MP Mahfuz Omar and three other assemblypersons also attended the Amanah convention's opening ceremony yesterday.- Mkini