Offer to PAS just unofficial personal proposal

 

What I have tried to do in the last 14 months was a failure as PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang believed that my suggestion that the party join Anwar Ibrahim’s government was an official proposal, not an unofficial personal view.

PAS information chief Khairil Nizam Khirudin said, "It was DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang who had the overture" that PAS join Anwar’s government.

Khairil is wrong. I am not the DAP adviser.

I said the following in response to PAS deputy president Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man on May 18.

"First of all, let me clarify that the proposal for cooperation between Anwar’s government and PAS to resolve the 60-year water problem and the lack of development in Kelantan, Terengganu, and Kedah is my idea and not that of DAP as I have not discussed it with the DAP secretary-general Anthony Loke or any other DAP leaders.

"This is why I declined Loke's proposal to appoint me as a DAP mentor. I want to give my views and ideas on the current national and international political situation without committing to the DAP.

"I think my efforts of more than a year have proved this point, and this clarification should put it beyond a shadow of doubt."

Apparently, the PAS Information chief thinks otherwise.

But did Hadi agree with his information chief?

Opportunity provided

I issued a statement on May 29 asking Hadi what he was smoking when he claimed after Tuan Ibrahim's statement and my second clarification that PAS was offered the chance to join Anwar’s government. Still, Hadi wanted a dominant role as it had the most parliamentary seats of all political parties.

I said: "This shows Hadi's lack of sincerity in wanting to be part of the unity government, as he is more interested in PAS domination than unity.

"Or could Hadi mistake my suggestion that PAS should work together with Anwar’s government to resolve long-standing issues of the 60-year water problem and the lack of development in Kelantan, Terengganu, and Kedah as an official invitation to Hadi for PAS to join Anwar’s government?

"Hadi cannot be unaware of my clarification that this was my personal idea and not that of DAP or that of Anwar’s government as I have not discussed it with the Loke or any other DAP leaders, let alone the leaders and ministers in Anwar’s government.

"Although I support the idea of PAS being part of the Anwar unity government, PAS must demonstrate a change of attitude to show that it supports the Yang di-Pertuan Agong's call for political stability and national unity in Malaysia.

"For a start, is Hadi prepared to retract and apologise for his numerous wild and preposterous allegations against the DAP and me?

"Secondly, will PAS MPs show that they will stop playing up racial and religious issues and be model MPs who support political stability and national unity?

"Thirdly, will PAS support the objective to make Malaysia the role model for the world for inter-ethnic, inter-religious, inter-cultural and inter-civilisation dialogue, understanding, tolerance, and harmony?"

Hadi’s explanation

Let Hadi state that he thought my proposal was official on behalf of Anwar’s government. Let him explain whether he would accept my three proposals before PAS joins Anwar’s government.

Clearly, the PAS information chief is not in touch with the PAS president to issue the ridiculous statement that I was the one to make the overture for PAS to join Anwar’s government.

Hadi had not acted as a responsible, honest and respected Islamic leader in the run-up to the 15th general election last November, as Hadi was found to be the most strident in inciting ethnic-based narratives on social media in the lead-up to GE15, according to an independent report revealed yesterday.

Spreading hate

The report titled "Social Media Monitoring of Malaysia's 15th General Elections" said Hadi and his party were complicit to incitement by neither calling out nor restricting social media users from further spreading hate to ethnic groups.

"So these actors are fueling hate narratives, as well as user-generated comments, and they were silent, so we can say they are complicit since they did not call out.

"It was very telling through the entire monitoring period," Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ) executive director Wathshlah Naidu said during the report's launch in Kuala Lumpur.

With 99,563 unique messages on social media analysed between Oct 20 and Nov 26 last year, the report found that "a significant majority" of social media posts comprised ethnic and religion-based narratives.

Wathshlah said Hadi himself was the sole individual with two posts reaching "Level Three" severity for his posts which were categorised as containing dehumanising and hostile language.

Citing a social media post by Hadi ahead of the November polls, the report said the lawmaker has actively propagated anti-Chinese sentiments and antagonised DAP through the language used, further exacerbated by misinformation and disinformation.

"In fact, Hadi's aforementioned TikTok posting on Malay election candidates fielded by DAP as 'cunning and dangerous' was found to have the highest engagement at all social media platforms combined at almost 2.5 million," the report added.

Will Hadi apologise for his irresponsible and dishonest role in social media during the GE15 run-up, as revealed by the report? - Mkini

---

LIM KIT SIANG, a DAP veteran, is the former Iskandar Puteri MP.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.