ALOR STAR, Dec 31 — Member of Parliament for Pokok Sena, Datuk Mahfuz Omar announced today that he was quitting PAS effective midnight.

Speaking to reporters on the eye of the new year, Mahfuz said he decided to leave the Islamist party after taking into consideration PAS’ difficulty to cooperate with Pakatan Harapan (PH) and severing of its ties with DAP and PKR.

However, for the time being he has not decided which party to join and will make an announcement on this before the upcoming 14th general election.

"I wish to state to PAS and all today that I will send a letter via email to PAS secretary-general, Datuk Takiyuddin Hassan on my resignation in accordance with Article 12 (2) of the PAS constitution and that I am now an independent member (MP).

"This is the curtain fall on my political career with PAS which I joined as a member on March 12, 1984… in one or two days, my wife and children will also quit PAS,” he said. Mahfuz said he was not pressured or offered anything by certain leaders to quit PAS, an allegation which had gone viral.

He said various approaches were made to save PAS and its members’ thinking, but the party did not seem serious about realising what the people were fighting or wished for.

Meanwhile, Mahfuz said, he left it to the PH top leadership after this to decide which seat he should be contesting.

Mahfuz has been a PAS member for 34 years and served as Pokok Sena MP since 1999 except for four years after he was defeated by the Barisan Nasional candidate in 2004.

He had been PAS vice-president and was appointed as Kedah PAS commissioner in 2013 to replace the late Datuk Seri Azizan Abdul Razak when the latter was in poor health. — Bernama