IRATE with the incessant attacks levelled against it, PAS declared that those who break any agreements with them will be punished by God.
“From day one, we only wanted UMNO unite the Malays using Islam as the platform. At the same time, we don’t want to leave out any community in multiracial Malaysia which is why we joined the Perikatan Nasional coalition.
“But UMNO is too parochial that it only wants the Muafakat Nasional (MN) to be an exclusive pact and was adamant on rejecting Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia.
“Bear in mind that the BN model of running Malaysia is no longer relevant and we will not be fooled into joining a narrow-minded political approach,” its president Tan Sri Abdul Hadi Awang said, in party mouthpiece Harakah Daily.
The ties between MN partners, UMNO and PAS, went south following the dissolution of the Johor state assembly.
Both the Islamist party and Bersatu accused the nationalist party of not consulting them before dissolving the state assembly.
Irate by UMNO’s four seats offer to PAS, Hadi accused the former of being “ungrateful”, claiming it was his party that “nursed UMNO back to life” following its defeat in the last general election.
PAS helped oust Pakatan
But UMNO had reminded PAS that the nationalist was okay going solo and did not need the Islamist party’s support to face elections.
Touching on the matter, Hadi reminded UMNO that it cooperated with Bersatu to dislodge the Pakatan Harapan Government, while the nationalist party was still reeling from its general election loss, in addition to a series of defections soon after.
“We rejected overtures to become part of Pakatan which was going astray. Similarly, we refused to join BN because it was sinking and we don’t want to drown with it.
“Though some of our members were enticed to change our roadmap, they either repented or got eaten by ‘sharks’ as what happened to those who left us in the past,” the Marang MP stated.
Hadi remarked: “I wish to remind our detractors that PAS members don’t simply pledge allegiance to the leadership whimsically.
“They just remain steadfast in our cause and God willing, we will reach our destination soon.” – Feb 3, 2022.
