The reason why the PAS President Datuk Seri Hadi Awang and other PAS leaders are telling lies about the DAP being anti-Malay and anti-Islam was because the DAP had refused to support Hadi as the Prime Minister candidate for Pakatan Rakyat in the 13th General Election in 2013.
Before the 13th General Election, Hadi through the PAS leadership had approached me to broach the subject of a Prime Ministerial-designate, on the ground that Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was not a suitable candidate.
PAS leaders were quite cunning as not to suggest themselves that Hadi should be the Prime Ministerial candidate for Pakatan Rakyat, and diplomatically suggested that their proposal for a suitable Prime Ministerial candidate was veteran UMNO politician Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah.
When DAP leaders dissented and held to our view that Anwar should continue to be the Prime Ministerial candidate for Pakatan Rakyat, and we made no suggestion that Hadi should instead be considered as the Prime Ministerial candidate, PAS leaders dropped the subject as they knew that the DAP would not support Hadi as the Prime Minister-designate and the proposal to replace Anwar as the Prime Ministerial candidate was not further pursued.
On looking back at Hadi’s record and performance as PAS President, it was probably a great blessing in disguise that Pakatan Rakyat did not win a slim majority of the parliamentary seats to oust Datuk Seri Najib Razak and UMNO/Barisan Nasional from Putrajaya, as it would have been most likely that the country would be plunged into a constitutional crisis if Hadi had announce his “kingmaker” role and swung the support of the PAS MPs to prop up Najib to continue as Prime Minister in those circumstances in the 13th General Election in 2013.
For reasons best known to Hadi and his PAS leadership, PAS had always more supportive of Najib as Prime Minister despite his 1MDB scandal and national betrayal in causing Malaysia to be condemned by the world as a global kleptocracy, and probably bargain for the post of Deputy Prime Minister, than to support Anwar Ibrahim as Prime Minister and Anwar’s commitment to good governance and fight against corruption.
It is because DAP refused to support Hadi as Prime Ministerial candidate that he is now telling lies about the DAP being anti-Malay and anti-Islam. Hadi has forgotten during the heyday of Pakatan Raykat, he had been saying that it was haram to vote for UMNO and that it was the duty of every PAS member and supporter to vote for the DAP.
Political leaders in Malaysia should not be hypocrites or opportunists. In fact, all religions teach that hypocrisy and opportunism will lead to sin and wrongdoing, like supporting Najib despite his kleptocratic premiership – something that Hadi should publicly repent.
(Media Statement by DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang at Ringlet, Cameron Highlands on Tuesday, 22nd January 2019)
