KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 15 — PAS must decide whether to stay in Perikatan Nasional or build up Muafakat Nasional with Umno, said Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed.
The former deputy minister said the Islamist party could no longer play both sides for its own political survival, but must decide sincerely whether it wants to work with one partner or the other.
On Tuesday, Umno announced that it was reviewing its support for Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s PN coalition unless the party received improved terms.
“PAS established political cooperation with Umno first through Muakafat Nasional and only joined in supporting PN later.
“So, if Umno no longer wants to be with PN, PAS must also make a decision on whether to continue with Muafakat Nasional or to keep supporting PN. Let this be clear,” he said in a statement carried by Sinar Harian.
Umno previously said it preferred to build up MN with PAS rather than join the PN coalition officially and repeated this when it announced the review of its support on Tuesday.
Umno and PAS signed a formal five-point charter for their political cooperation in September 2019 and had planned to formalise MN in May before the event was overtaken by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Since then, PN has been registered as a party and contested officially as a coalition for the first time in last month’s Sabah state election.
The relationship between Umno, PAS, and Muhyiddin’s Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia is convoluted, however, as the latter has also accepted an invitation to join MN despite pushing for allied parties to be in PN.
