KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 28 — PAS secretary-general Datuk Mustafa Ali today challenged Lim Guan Eng to a debate to settle the ongoing squabble between the two parties over the DAP’s bid to restore local council polls.

Mustafa insisted that while PAS acknowledges its Pakatan Rakyat (PR) ally's push for the third vote to be reinstated, the Islamist party does not agree to its implementation.

"Yes, Guan Eng spoke to me over the phone and told me that local government election is part of DAP'S election pledge and that they are under tremendous pressure by NGOs to see it through.

"But this call only came after the DAP state government passed the enactment at the legislative assembly and we acknowledged it, but didn't agree to it.

"Guan Eng shouldn't be saying we agreed to it... don't lie... don't resort to half truths," said Mustafa at a press conference today.

The disagreement over the third vote is the latest flashpoint to threaten the relationship between PAS and DAP, whose leaders have already been trading barbs over the Islamist party’s plan to enforce hudud Islamic penal law in Kelantan.

DAP had proposed that its PR allies adopt Penang’s approach and enact state laws in Selangor and Kelantan to try to return the third vote to Malaysians.

PAS, however, accused DAP of acting unilaterally in seeking to restore local council elections, in an apparent retaliation to the latter's vehement attacks over the Islamist party’s hudud ambition.

PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang outrightly rejected the proposal and argued recently that local council polls could spark racial animosity and potential violence similar to the bloody 1969 May 13 racial riots.

Rebutting the claims, Lim, who is the Penang chief minister, inisted that DAP's intentions were conveyed to PAS at the PR's leadership council meetings ― which the Islamist party did not object to at the time ― and accused the PAS leadership of being “dishonest”.

“When I received Guan Eng's call after the enactment was passed in 2012, all I said was insyaAllah, what else is there to say?

“I didn't object to it or make any negative comments because it was already a done deal,” Mustafa said today.

The PAS leader also said that the enactment to restore local government elections was passed through the DAP-controlled Penang state assembly in 2012 without the party's sole representative, Permatang Pasir assemblyman Datuk Salleh Man's vote - as the latter was advised to refrain from taking part in the debate or voting in favour of the enactment.

To prove his point, Mustafa argued that DAP's silence over the Kelantan state government's participation in the federal government's technical committee to study the implementation of hudud, does not mean DAP is supportive of hudud.

He added a public discussion would be best to iron out the differences in opinion as private phone calls are easily misconstrued.

“I feel, he (Lim) is the dishonest one here,” he said.

Local council elections were suspended in 1965 because of the Indonesian Confrontation and then-prime minister Tunku Abdul Rahman promised the Dewan Rakyat that local elections would be restored once the Confrontation was over. They were never brought back.