‘PAS CABINET DISCRIMINATORY’
Party’s preferred line-up biased against non-Muslims, says Ti
MCA religious harmony bureau chief Ti Lian Ker has labelled Pas president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang’s preferred cabinet composition as being discriminatory towards non-Muslims.
Hadi, in a statement last week, had said that non-Muslims would only fit professional and management roles in the cabinet, with policy and concept matters left to its Muslim members.
Ti, in response, said by saying so, Hadi had openly discriminated against non-Muslims.
“Why is Hadi and his party discriminating against non-Muslims by imposing restrictions on policymaking duties?”
Hadi justified his stand on the composition of the cabinet, by saying Muslims formed the majority in the country and Islam provided more rights to non-Muslims in politics, economical and other worldly matters.
He said this was more than what was prescribed by other man-made ideologies.
Ti, in retaliation, extracted part of Hadi’s statement, which read: “In terms of politics, Islam strictly requires leaders in charge of policies and concepts to be Muslims while accepting non-Muslims in terms of expertise and management, not policy and concept.”
“Given that this was expressly stated by Hadi and published by his party’s mouthpiece Harakah Daily, how is it possible that Pas leaders are making denials now?” asked Ti.
“Where is the sincerity and hon- esty of Pas leaders? The statement was clear, and yet, they are pointing fingers and blaming the messenger for slander,” he said.
Ti said Hadi once had an opportunity to lead a cabinet when Pas was installed as the state government of Terengganu in 1999, but with an exclusively Muslim cabinet, Pas lost the state in the next election.