KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 9 — PAS affirmed today its commitment to the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) partnership with PKR and DAP even as it acknowledged the bloc faced a cloudy future ahead with de facto chief Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s possible return to jail for sodomy hanging over their heads.

Fresh from his party leadership’s two-day retreat, the Islamist party’s research centre director Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad said PAS has taken note of the people’s hopes for PR as an alternative government and will iron out the wrinkles with its political allies to achieve that goal.

“On the issue of Pakatan Rakyat, we have again endorsed very strongly that we are with the fraternity of Pakatan Rakyat,” Dzulkefly told Malay Mail Online.

“We’ll work to enhance the performance of Pakatan Rakyat, regardless of what happens to Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim,” the PAS central committee member added.

PKR advisor Anwar, who is also the opposition leader, made a final challenge to the country’s top court to reverse a five-year sodomy conviction last week and is awaiting the outcome that could put him behind bars and lose his seat in Parliament, effectively ending his political career.

The Federal Court reserved its judgment last Friday on the 67-year-old’s sodomy appeal without indicating when the ruling will be out.

If Anwar loses, the Permatang Pauh MP would lose his seat as the law bars anyone fined RM2,000 or imprisoned for one year from serving as a lawmaker.

The ties between PAS, PKR and the DAP were strained in the recent Selangor mentri besar crisis when PKR attempted to get then-MB Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim to step down from office.

The messy weeks-long imbroglio saw PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang criticising publicly his PKR counterpart Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, whom PKR had nominated as Khalid’s replacement, before the Selangor Sultan finally appointed PKR deputy president Azmin Ali as the new mentri besar.

PAS has also been facing an internal struggle between the conservative ulama faction that wants to implement hudud and its reformists who want the Islamist party to remain in PR, where it remains at loggerheads with the secular DAP, which has consistently objected to implementation of the Islamic penal code.