Invited to team up, PAS tells Umno to join its fight instead

(Malay Mail Online) – PAS told Umno today to abandon its nationalism and embrace the Islamist party’s commitment to the Shariah Islamic law, in response overtures from the Malay party.

According to PAS deputy president Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man, Umno’s pursuit of nationalism instead of fulfilling its religious obligation to enforce the Shariah as the government of the day was why the two parties remain natural opponents.

“PAS, as an opposition party, will continue with its policy to invite people and pressure those in power to return to the system handed down by Allah.

“We will not tire of inviting, pressing and urging Umno to abandon the nationalistic base that is the foundation of its struggle,” he said in a statement today.

Tuan Ibrahim also said the cooperation sought by Umno was difficult due to the latter’s oppression of PAS and its members over the decades, such as the alleged victimisation of civil servants who supported the Islamist party and the neglect of Kelantan that has been under the party’s rule since 1990.

But he said PAS was always prepared to accept the repentant, citing as example its willingness to work with Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah who left Umno to form Semangat 46 and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim who was expelled from the Malay nationalist party.

The PAS deputy president also said Umno’s current invitation to cooperate based on Islamic principles appeared to be motivated by its ongoing internal crisis rather than a sincere desire to uphold Islam, adding that Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad made the same overtures when he had been threatened within Umno.

“PAS will not conspire to embrace new burdens, as said by the PAS president,” Tuan Ibrahim said.

The mooted co-operation was a recurring theme during the ongoing Umno general assembly, after Datuk Seri Najib Razak extended an open invitation to PAS to collaborate based on Islamic principles.

Talk of collaboration between the two political parties resurfaced recently when PAS vice-president Datuk Husam Musa claimed that Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang had approached Umno to form a unity government in Selangor during the state’s mentri besar crisis last year.

PAS had been a part of the ruling coalition ― then called the Alliance Party ― in the early 1970s.

It left the coalition after a falling out with Umno over a reduction in federal seat allocations and a ban on PAS from holding public election rallies.