KUALA LUMPUR, June 2 — DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang today called PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang irresponsible and dishonest for previously making misleading remarks that “certain individuals” had “repeatedly” offered his party chances to join the government led by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
The former MP said Hadi’s admission yesterday that the purported offer was made last year after the November general election, and that there had been no fresh offers after that showed the Opposition lawmaker’s duplicity.
“I congratulate Abdul Hadi for not suffering from the intellectual inadequacy of mistaking my personal suggestion that PAS should join the Anwar unity government as an official DAP or government invitation, but it also showed that all the other party leaders, including the Mursyidul Am, the deputy president and the information chief did not know what their president was talking about.
“If the other PAS leaders do not know what their president was talking about, it is expected that the other political parties in the Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition, including Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) have no idea what Abdul Hadi was talking about,” said Lim in a statement.
He also said Abdul Hadi was probably referring to Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri'ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah’s proposal for an unity government between Pakatan Harapan (PH) and PN during his audience with political leaders last November 22.
“The offer was rejected by PN — before Anwar was sworn in as the 10th Prime Minister on November 24,” he said.
Lim, who declared an official retirement from politics ahead of GE15, has said his call for PAS to be part of the unity government was made in his personal capacity and should not be taken as reflective of the DAP or PH.
He added that he has not met Anwar for any discussion since the PH chairman was appointed prime minister.
Lim said the incident showed how wild allegations had the potential to become explosive and threaten public harmony.
“It was even more irresponsible and dishonest for other PAS leaders to echo Abdul Hadi’s talk as if they were recent occurrences,” he said.
Several PN leaders, including PAS, have insisted that it was Lim who had initiated the offer to PAS because the newly formed unity government at the time was in a precarious situation and Umno no longer had the support of the Malay community.
However, Lim later clarified that PAS had misunderstood his personal suggestion for the party's state governments to cooperate with the federal government, and suggested that its information chief Khairil Nizam Khirudin did not consult party president Abdul Hadi before putting the blame on DAP.
The statement came after Abdul Hadi had previously claimed that PAS was invited to join the Anwar-led unity government and leave its PN partner Bersatu.
The proposal has since been rubbished by those in the Anwar Cabinet, including Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi who branded PAS as unreliable.
