PETALING JAYA, Sept 14 — Top leaders in PKR and PAS are meeting today to discuss their political future ahead of next month’s Dewan Rakyat sitting, but the Islamist party’s president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang was noticeably absent from the pow-wow.
Among PKR leaders seen arriving at its party headquarters here for the meeting were president Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, vice-presidents Chua Tian Chang, Shamsul Iskandar Md Akin and Datuk Saifuddin Nasution and secretary-general Rafizi Ramli.
PAS is represented by a three-man delegation led by deputy president Datuk Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man, and included its secretary-general Datuk Takiyuddin Hassan and elections director Datuk Mustafa Ali.
“[This is] for the future of politics in Malaysia. Because we have a Parliament sitting next month, of course we have to meet,” Shamsul Iskandar told reporters before the meeting.
“We have met Amanah, so today we are scheduled for PAS… It is a usual meeting, an open-ended one,” Saifuddin said, referring to PAS offshoot, Parti Amanah Negara.
Rafizi said yesterday that the meeting is intended to gather feedback from the Islamic party for possible contribution to the creation of the new pact’s common policy framework.
Last Friday, top PKR leaders said that PAS was needed in the new alliance in order to defeat Barisan Nasional in the next general election.
They urged all opposition parties to put aside their differences and to work towards forming a strong, viable federal coalition before the 14th general election due to be called by 2018.
DAP lawmaker Ramkarpal Singh had demanded PKR deputy president Azmin Ali make a clear stand on whether his party will continue to work with PAS as this will determine the makeup of the new opposition coalition that will replace the now-defunct Pakatan Rakyat (PR).
The Bukit Gelugor MP said Azmin cannot arbitrarily dismiss concerns raised by DAP’s leadership over the latter’s apparent preference to continue working with the Islamist opposition party.
The three-party PR split after a fallout between DAP and PAS over a number of key ideological differences, including the Islamist’s party’s hudud push.
Ramkarpal claimed further that it was PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang who was responsible for the breakup of PR and the recent mass exodus from his own party of so-called progressive leaders, who have gone on to create Parti Amanah Negara.
