PAS denies Hadi mooted all-Malay cabinet
KUALA LUMPUR: PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang did not call for an all-Malay Cabinet and has been misreported by several media outlets as saying such, the political party clarified yesterday.
PAS information chief Nasrudin Hassan said Abdul Hadi's December 22 article had been wrongly reported, also denying the summary of a report by the New Straits Times (NST) titled “PAS president: All-Malay cabinet members for Malaysia”.
“In reality, not one line or comment at all was made by the PAS president in his article that stated that all members of the Cabinet must be Malay-Muslims,” Nasrudin said in a statement yesterday.
In explaining Abdul Hadi's article, Nasrudin said that PAS stresses on the importance and necessity for Malay-Muslims to be the core of the country's political system and administration structure based on Islamic political jurisprudence.
He said that Abdul Hadi had in his article admitted and recognised the position and role played by non-Muslims in a government.
Nasrudin said that Abdul Hadi's comments were based on Islamic political jurisprudence's division of ministries to that of Wizarah al-Tafwid and Wizarah al-Tanfiz, equating this to the positions of prime minister and Cabinet ministers respectively.
Despite acknowledging the PAS president as having said that “Islam posits that the country leader and his cabinet members must be of the Islamic faith from the most influential race”, Nasrudin argued that Abdul Hadi was not referring to all Cabinet members.
Nasrudin claimed that Abdul Hadi had instead meant that Cabinet members as Wizarah al-Tafwid for certain ministries must be Muslims according to Islamic jurisprudence.
Nasrudin claimed that the PAS president had sought to say that Islam was very open towards the appointment of non-Muslims as Cabinet ministers or Wizarah al-Tanfiz, as compared to the modern political party system which allegedly only accepts those sharing the same ideology for such positions.
He referred specifically to a line in Abdul Hadi's article which said: “In terms of politics, Islam firmly makes it mandatory for the main leadership that takes care of its policy and concept to be from Muslims, and accepts nonMuslims in terms of expertise and management, not on matters of policy and concept.”
“I hope that there are no quarters that intentionally try to incite misunderstanding or deviate PAS's actual stand and stance about this matter because PAS truly understands the reality of the diverse society in this country,” Nasrudin concluded.
In Abdul Hadi's article, he had cited Islamic jurisprudence scholar Al-Mawardi as saying that the appointment of non-Muslims is only permissible for Wazir alTanfiz positions or ministers or Cabinet members that implement administration matters, and not for Wazir al-Tawfid positions that involve the making of national policies.
In an Islamic administration model, Wazir al-Tawfid is an upper tier position, while the Wazir alTanfiz positions is of the lower tier that involves the execution of government orders.
Following Abdul Hadi's article, leaders from the federal opposition Pakatan Harapan had criticised the idea of pushing for an all-Malay Cabinet as being irrational and discriminatory, while DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng had also described such a proposal as being racist, extremist and unconstitutional.