Hadi: PAS willing to work with any Malay political party

KUALA TERENGGANU: PAS is willing to work with any political party, especially Malay-based ones, for the sake of Muslim unity, says its president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang.

According to Sin Chew Daily, the Marang MP said besides Umno, Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia could be a partner too.

“There are too many Malay parties and this has caused the Malays to split, so there is a need to unite.

“The existing Malay political parties are PAS, Umno, Bersatu and Gagasan Sejahtera. PKR and Amanah are not Malay political parties. We want to collaborate with Malay political parties, including Bersatu,” he was quoted as saying.

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had said the current cooperation between Umno and PAS was more towards returning former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak as the leader and permitting all the crimes alleged against him.

However, Abdul Hadi denied this and said the cooperation was to restore Malay leadership.

He said PAS would support Dr Mahathir as prime minister until his term ends.

“Our cooperation is not for Najib, he is no longer the prime minister, nor is he the Umno president,” he said.

Abdul Hadi pointed out that the cooperation was supported by PAS members.

“By-election victories in Cameron Highlands and Semenyih are proof of this,” he said.

Abdul Hadi was non-committal when asked how long the cooperation would last and whether the two parties would merge.

As for the allocation of seats for the next general election, he said this could only be answered when the general election comes, because politics was fluid.

Abdul Hadi also said DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng made the claim that the Umno-PAS union was a “declaration of war” against non-Malays out of fear.

With the Umno-PAS cooperation, he said Lim was worried DAP was unable to use Malays to gain political power.

“That is why Lim is afraid of the Umno-PAS union.

“We are not neglecting other races. We accept foreigners into our country during the British colonial era to become our citizens.

“In fact, non-Malays should be grateful to Muslims for accepting them as citizens and granting them the freedom of religion and language,” he said.

Abdul Hadi said that as far as he knows, the Indonesian and Thai governments do not allow local Chinese to set up Chinese schools, but Malaysia allows SJK(C) and SJK(T) (Chinese primary schools and Tamil primary schools).

“Non-Malays should be grateful, but they are insatiable and demanding more. This should not be the case,” he said.

At the same time, he stressed that PAS was not a racist political party.

“PAS has the PAS Supporters Congress, the non-Muslim wing of the party. The party has also met MIC leaders. The two parties have good relations, so it is not true that PAS is a racist party,” he said.