PERMATANG PAUH, April 26 — Penang PAS Youth has maintained it will not support PKR’s by-election campaign despite the Islamist party’s announcement last night that the spat between the two Pakatan Rakyat (PR) parties had been resolved.
Penang PAS Youth chief Mohd Yusni Mat Piah said they will not help the Permatang Pauh by-election campaign in any way.
“We will not open any operations centre and all premises under Penang PAS Youth will not be open for use by any party for the campaign,” he said in a statement issued today.
The youth wing of the Islamist party expressed its disappointment with PKR’s youth wing for not apologising over its criticisms against PAS chief Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang.
“Even our Alternatif Riding Club (ARC) used in any convoys along with security workers from our party will not be on duty during this campaign period,” he said.
He stressed that the state youth wing members will not attend any events or ceramah throughout the entire duration of the campaign.
Penang PAS Youth had given the Penang PKR Youth time until the nomination day to apologise for insulting and issuing a slanderous statement against Abdul Hadi.
“This is why we decided not to help PKR in its campaign during this by-election,” he said.
Yusni expressed his disappointment over Penang PKR Youth’s silence when they had demanded an apology.
“We are also disappointed by PKR’s political tricks and by certain PAS leaders over how they managed to ‘persuade’ the Permatang Pauh PAS division to support the campaign,” he said.
Last night, Permatang Pauh PAS finally relented and agreed to support PKR’s campaign after a meeting with PKR and PAS national leaders on Friday.
The division chief Omar Hassan said they had received instructions from the Shura Council to support the campaign and that after the meeting, they had decided to “agree to disagree with Muslim PKR leaders who reject hudud”.
