KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 1 — PAS and DAP co-operation has deteriorated beyond salvage after the recent round of open attacks between the two over local elections and hudud Islamic penal law, editors at Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia said today.

Writing under the shared Awang Selamat pen name, the newspaper’s editors said the unconcealed animosity between the two Pakatan Rakyat partners, whose ties have been strained since the Islamist party began its push for hudud in Kelantan, signalled a lasting erosion of goodwill.

“Awang does not see that relations between the two parties will easily be restored after this because the trading of insults in the alliance is increasing and difficult to forgive,” the paper’s editors wrote in Mingguan Malaysia, the Sunday edition of the Malay daily.

Last month, PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang claimed that DAP’s ambition to restore the so-called third vote would create racial inequality in urban areas and trigger a repeat of the May 13, 1969 race riots, prompting DAP leaders to rebuke him for the assertion.

Earlier this week, PAS secretary-general Mustafa Ali called his DAP counterpart, Lim Guan Eng, a liar for claiming that the Islamist party had agreed to the latter’s bid to restore local council elections, and challenged him to a public debate on the issue and hudud.

The disagreement over the third vote is the most recent flashpoint between PAS and DAP, who have been trading barbs over the Islamist party’s plan to enforce Islamic penal law in Kelantan.

DAP had proposed that it 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 apparent retaliation the latter’s vehement attacks over the Islamist party’s hudud ambition.