KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 8 — PAS’ misgivings over the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) as a deal that would bring “economic catastrophe” upon Malaysia are inching closer to reality, party president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang said today.

Hadi also claimed that the TPP – which was finalised last month between US, Malaysia and 10 other nations in the Pacific – would threaten the country’s sovereignty.

“Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS)’s worries of an impending economic catastrophe on the country with the TPP agreement is now closer to becoming a reality,” he wrote in an article titled “Pandangan awal TPP: PAS bantah pendirian kerajaan Umno BN” (Preliminary thoughts on TPP: PAS opposes the Umno BN government’s stand).

In the article published by PAS mouthpiece Harakah Daily, Hadi claimed that his description of TPP as “neo-imperialism in the guise of a global economy ‘backed’ by the law” has been proven through the preface of the recently released TPP text.

He said the revealed text stated that the TPP represents member nations’ rights and responsibilities to an agreement that forms the basis of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

Hadi noted that he had, in August 2010, warned that the TPP posed a danger to Malaysia as it would expose the country to the WTO’s mechanism and effects.

The Islamist opposition party head also claimed that the “actual agenda” of the free trade treaty was shown through US President Barack Obama’s comments in interviews on the importance of the TPP to the US.

“All this preliminary information is sufficient to convince Malaysia that the TPP is a colonisation that has returned and will snatch away the economic sovereignty of the country,” he claimed, without directly naming which country or organisation would carry out the alleged recolonisation of Malaysia.

“Malaysians should realise that the capitalist western society also rejected the WTO because it only benefits the capitalists and continues to oppress the people in the name of globalisation,” he claimed, later reiterating PAS’s firm objections to TPP “for the sake of the people’s and the country’s future and wellbeing”.

PAS’s own team of researchers and experts are currently going through the TPP context and annex and is expected to issue a full report soon, he said.