KUALA LUMPUR, June 7 — PAS MP Khalid Samad told the DAP today to quit bad mouthing its Pakatan Rakyat (PR) partners for its own loss in Teluk Intan last weekend, saying the pact receives enough daily vitriol from its foes Barisan Nasional (BN).

The PAS central committee member said the DAP was falling into BN’s trap by claiming that issues like hudud, PKR’s party election and the Selangor state government’s administration, were factors that could leave the PR pact with just Penang and some federal seats in urban areas in the next general election.

“The less the DAP criticises its colleagues in Pakatan Rakyat, the better,” Khalid told The Malay Mail Online today.

“Leave it to BN. There’s no need for the DAP to assist, with all due respect. You can be too much of an academic that you don’t realise you’re a politician,” added the Shah Alam MP.

Former political analyst and DAP election strategist Dr Ong Kian Ming said recently that PAS’ insistence on hudud, discontent over Selangor Mentri Besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim’s handling of the Kinrara Damansara Expressway (Kidex), and the Selangor Islamic Religious Department’s (Jais) seizure of bibles, and fraud allegations in PKR’s party elections, could cost PR Selangor in the 14th general election.

He also said the Islamist party’s push for an Islamic criminal justice system was costing the federal opposition pact support among the non-Malays, whom he said felt betrayed because hudud was not part of PR’s election manifesto.

Khalid, however, said today that the DAP was merely creating problems within PR and among the public by highlighting such issues.

“If you keep on being prophets of doom and not doing what needs to be done, you’re prophesying your own downfall,” he said.

“As far as the Selangor state government is concerned, I hope Pakatan Rakyat works as a proper coalition and sorts out the problems, and ensure it’s a PR government and not a Tan Sri Khalid government,” added the Shah Alam MP.

Khalid also insisted that PAS’ hudud bid was restricted to Kelantan, which the Islamist party has ruled for more than two decades.

“There’s no way you can bring such a bill in Parliament for implementation at the national level. Malaysia is not Kelantan,” he said, adding that hudud law was being pushed in Kelantan as a PAS agenda, and not under PR’s common policy framework.

Khalid said DAP’s Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud had lost the Teluk Intan by-election last Saturday mainly because the 26-year-old Ipoh-born was up against Gerakan president Datuk Mah Siew Keong, a 53-year-old prominent local who had served the federal seat in Perak for two terms before losing it in the 2008 and 2013 general elections.

He also noted that the poor voter turnout of 67.4 per cent in the Teluk Intan poll was a common problem across all by-elections.

“The DAP also won Bukit Gelugor hands down, so much so that BN didn’t even put in a candidate. All those factors — hudud, Kidex, the PKR elections — were already there, but you won it still. The time difference was only a week,” Khalid pointed out, referring to the Bukit Gelugor by-election on May 25.

PKR vice-president N. Surendran also disagreed with Ong’s forecast and said he did not see voters abandoning PR in droves in the 14th general election, pointing out that sentiments in the Teluk Intan by-election were different from those in a general election.

“We’re still vastly different from BN. The public knows BN is corrupt, oppressive and cannot be changed, and the people still want to be rid of BN’s rule,” Surendran told The Malay Mail Online.

He acknowledged, however, that issues like hudud and the Selangor administration needed to be resolved.

“Selangor must become a model state for how we’re going to rule Malaysia when we take over,” said the Padang Serai MP.

Surendran also admitted that his party elections were an “embarrassment”.

“But the difference is that we admitted to our faults. We ordered re-elections immediately. We didn’t try to cover up anything. And the second point is that much of the problem was caused by a lack of resources and logistical power. These were volunteers trying to run a nation-wide election,” he said.