PAS cutting ties with DAP would virtually destroy Pakatan Rakyat’s Selangor government, said the state’s Islamist party leaders, and end years of hard work that went into building a model PR administration.
They said that the proposal to cut ties with DAP, made by the party’s influential Muslim scholars’ (ulama) wing, did not take into account the close rapport between the three parties in Selangor.
“We have worked so well from the state executive council to the state assembly to the local council level to the grassroots.
“If there was no cooperation, the government would break apart,” said Selangor PAS chief Datuk Iskandar Abdul Samad.
Claims of antagonistic ties between DAP and PAS, which were the basis of the proposal, were not relevant to Selangor, said Iskandar, who is Selangor exco for housing, building and urban living management.
“The situation is different in Selangor,” said Iskandar when asked what he thought of the proposal which was a motion unanimously passed by grassroots leaders at the Dewan Ulama assembly on Wednesday.
The party’s ulama wing wanted PAS to break up with DAP but remain in Pakatan Rakyat as it had no problems working with PKR.
The main reasons for cutting ties were that DAP had strenuously opposed PAS’s plan to enforce its controversial Shariah Criminal Code in Kelantan and because the social democratic party had severed ties with PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang.
Hadi, who has led the party since 2002, retained the presidency in elections for the top party post yesterday, beating veteran religious scholar and former PAS vice-president Ahmad Awang.
The motion is expected to be debated at the assembly today.
DAP and PAS each control 15 constituencies in the 56-seat Selangor assembly while PKR holds 13. Together, they have a two-thirds majority which allows them to form the government.
PAS and PKR would only be left with 28 seats, if DAP were to pull out of PR, leaving PR with one seat short of a simple majority needed to form the government.
Another Selangor PAS leader, Sallehin Mukhyi, said even if PKR and PAS were somehow able to form the state government, it would be very unstable without DAP’s support.
“We need each other in Selangor. In fact there is no talk about breaking up but of strengthening our hold in Selangor,” said Sallehin, who is a former exco member.
PKR de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim had once described the Selangor PR government as a model of the type of administration that PR would form if it took over federal power.
This ideal is based on how the Selangor government runs the state and also the mixed ethnic composition of its executive council which mirrors Selangor’s and Malaysia’s demographics.
The cohesiveness of Selangor PR helped it win eight more state seats in the 13th general election compared with the 36 won in the 12th general election. Six of those new seats were won by PAS candidates.
“I wonder whether the people who put up the motion understood its implications, especially the fact that we have a government with DAP,” said Shah Alam MP Khalid Samad.
The motion, he said, was also contradictory because it wanted to end ties with DAP but still remain in PR, which consists of the three parties.
“How can you have a relationship and not have a relationship?”
Khalid disagreed with the justification that PAS needed to cut ties with DAP because of how the party treated Hadi, as DAP still wants to work with PAS.
“DAP has no problems with PAS being an Islamist party and our struggles. They just have problems with one individual and that stemmed from a misunderstanding.” – June 5, 2015.
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