KUALA LUMPUR, March 20 — PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang has reminded Lim Kit Siang that it was not his party that caused the collapse of the Perak government in 2009.
His comments come after his former DAP ally called the Islamist party a “zero” earlier this week.
The collapse and subsequent year-long constitutional impasse that ensued was the fault of DAP and PKR, Hadi said in a report in the New Sunday Times today.
“(During the Perak constitutional crisis) the Perak government did not collapse because of PAS. It was because of DAP and PKR. You must remember that.
“We are not zero. Did Perak collapse because PAS representatives party hopped? No. The state government fell because DAP representatives jumped ship,” he was quoted as saying.
Hadi was responding to Lim who said, “Zero plus zero equals zero,” when asked earlier this week to comment on PAS’ formation of a new alliance with Parti Ikatan Bangsa Malaysia (Ikatan).
The Perak crisis was triggered in February 2009 after three assemblymen — two from PKR and one from the DAP — defected, causing the then Pakatan Rakyat-led (PR) state government to collapse.
Barisan Nasional (BN) then formed the new state government after Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had an audience with the Sultan of Perak, together with 31 assemblymen who stated that they had no confidence in embattled PR mentri besar Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin.
The decision was challenged in court and doubts over its legitimacy were not put to rest until a year later, when the Federal Court upheld an earlier decision by the Court of Appeal that BN’s Datuk Dr Zambry Abd Kadir was the rightful MB.
PAS and Ikatan announced a formal alliance last Thursday and said they would act more as a pressure group that would engage the government to resolve problems confronting the country.
