KUALA LUMPUR, March 6 — PAS and Umno’s "marriage” announcement is confirmation of the two parties’ undeclared love from when Pakatan Rakyat disintegrated in 2015, said PKR chief organising secretary Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad.

Commenting on acting Umno president Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan’s announcement of the union yesterday, Nik Nazmi said he already predicted this last year when the two parties began cooperating experimentally.

"I had declared them married as far back as in the Seri Setia by-election in August 2018; after all, the courtship emerged after the fall of Pakatan Rakyat.

"But with the revelation of the deals that PAS leadership took with Umno involving monetary compensation, it seems that this is less a marriage but a commercial arrangement involving a willing donor and willing recipient.”

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission is investigating PAS leaders for allegedly taking RM90 million from Umno in return for political support ahead of the 14th general election.

Beyond that, the Setiawangsa MP and former Seri Setia representative also said the two Opposition parties were now indistinguishable from one another.

He went on to cast doubt on the endurance of the new union or the benefit, if any, this would bring to the Malay community.

Among others, he asserted PAS and Umno were tying up for their own political interests and to deflect allegations of past misdeeds.

"The two parties have only provided tired rhetoric without any clear alternatives, and have been whittled down to be more like regional rather than national parties,’’ he said.

Nik Nazmi also said today’s Umno and PAS were mere shadows of the parties previously headed by such figures as Datuk Onn Jaafar, Tunku Abdul Rahman, and Tun Abdul Razak for the former, and Dr Burhanuddin Helmy, Datuk Fadzil Noor and Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Mat for the Islamists.

"The actions of today’s crop of Umno and PAS leaders, as well as their so-called ‘marriage’, mean that both parties have turned their backs on the spirit as well as legacies of their former icons,” he said.