KUALA LUMPUR, April 4 — PAS maintained today that the party is opposed to the Goods and Services Tax (GST) although it chose to stay away from the Pakatan Harapan-led protest on Saturday to mark the one-year anniversary of the tax system’s rollout.
PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang, when asked today outside the Dewan Rakyat if the Islamist party supports the GST, shook his head in disagreement.
Separately, PAS vice-president Idris Ahmad said the party is strongly against the tax system but did not attend the opposition-led rally due to prior commitments.
“We are consistent. We are against GST, we do fight against GST,” he told reporters when met outside the Parliament lobby.
“We had committed to another program in Sik, Kedah involving the rubber tappers there,” Idris added, when explaining PAS’s reason for not attending the rally.
He, however, did not want to comment on why PAS was not interested in working together with Pakatan Harapan, which has also been opposing the tax.
“We have been consistent, the important thing is that we are against GST,” Idris said repeatedly.
The rally on Saturday held to mark the one-year anniversary of the GST rollout drew over a thousand people to the streets of the capital.
The event went by smoothly despite earlier warnings by the police against using Dataran Merdeka, and ended by 5.30pm after several speeches by opposition figures and a surprise appearance by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
A rally on the same issue held in May last year before the fallout between PAS and its former Pakatan Rakyat partners reportedly attracted a larger turnout.
