Archive for category PAS

Seat negotiations will test Pakatan unity

Joseph Sipalan and Lee Way Loon | Jul 29, 11
Malaysiakini

INTERVIEW It appears that Malaysia’s opposition is looking at covering all its bases in anticipation of a snap general election that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak may call at any time.

With speculation that snap polls could be called as early as November, Pakatan Rakyat has already gone into discussions to determine its candidates for each of the 222 parliamentary seats up for grabs.

DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang (left) said the plan is for Pakatan leaders at state level to finalise their seat negotiations by Sunday (July 31), though he did not discount the possibility that the negotiations may require more time.

What is more significant, however, is how the three Pakatan member parties – PKR, DAP and PAS – iron out their differences and accommodate one another’s needs for growth, both within the confines of the coalition and in the broader scope of Malaysian politics.
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DAP downplays Pakatan split rumours

By Clara Chooi
July 18, 2011 | The Malaysian Insider

KUALA LUMPUR, July 18 — DAP advisor Lim Kit Siang today shrugged off talk that his party may split from Pakatan Rakyat (PR) due to recurring conflicts with PAS, saying the idea had “not seriously occurred” to party leaders.

The senior politician also rejected the notion that PAS had kowtowed to DAP when the former revoked the Kedah entertainment outlet ban yesterday, insisting instead that the state government had shown tolerance and their willingness to resolve conflicts through consultation.

“The issue has shown the preparedness of the Pakatan Rakyat leadership to discuss and resolve problems, a glaring contrast with Umno,” he told The Malaysian Insider today. Read the rest of this entry »

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PAS: MCA, Gerakan approved nightspot ban in 1997

The Malaysian Insider | July 18, 2011

KUALA LUMPUR, July 18 — PAS today called MCA and Gerakan hypocrites for criticising the Kedah ban on entertainment outlets, pointing out that the two parties had approved the law when it was passed during the rule of the Barisan Nasional (BN) in the state.

“It was this group that supported the enactment in 1997 when it was debated before,” PAS information chief Datuk Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man said in a statement carried on PAS website Harakah Daily this morning. “Suddenly, they want to become heroes supposedly because they want to protect the rights of the non-Muslims.”

Tuan Ibrahim, who is PAS Pahang commissioner, also countered accusations that the state’s decision yesterday to revoke the ban was due to the Islamist party’s subservience to DAP and dared all BN-controlled states to impose the same restrictions.
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Kedah drops Ramadan bar closure plan

By Hazland Zakaria
Jul 17, 11 | MalaysiaKini

The PAS-led Kedah government has dropped plans to enforce a 1997 state enactment that requires bars, discos and karaoke clubs to close during the coming Ramadhan, a state official told AFP today.

The northern state decided in May to enforce closure of all entertainment outlets during the holy month, as stipulated in the state law passed by the previous BN-led administration.

However, the plan drew criticism from entertainment outlet operators, as well as other Pakatan Rakyat components who feared that a blanket ban would alienate non-Muslim voters. Read the rest of this entry »

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Kedah entertainment ban limited to Muslims, says Hadi

By Syed Mu’az Syed Putra
July 17, 2011 | The Malaysian Insider

AMPANG, July 17 — Kedah has revoked the outright ban on entertainment outlets during Ramadan and will instead bar only Muslims from patronising such establishments, PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang said today.

Hadi blamed the mainstream media’s inaccurate reports for causing confusion and sparking discontent among non-Muslims.

“The BN media is exploiting this issue. So only non-Muslims can enter (the entertainment outlets), but Muslims will not be allowed to enter,” Hadi told reporters here today. Read the rest of this entry »

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Thousands throng ‘Bersih 3.0’ ceramah in Penang

Susan Loone
Malaysiakini
Jul 12, 11

They have been accused of hijacking the July 9 rally as calls of ‘reformasi’ – PKR’s battle cry – reverberated on the streets of Kuala Lumpur instead of cries of ‘Bersih’ for electoral reforms.

Yet more than 5,000 turned up to throw a hero’s welcome for Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim and PAS deputy chief Mohamad Sabu at the Seberang Jaya Expo site last night, a ceramah which the latter described as ‘Bersih 3.0’.

Both leaders, who arrived within 20 minutes of each other, made a grand entrance – Anwar entered sporting a neck brace and had to assisted as he headed for the stage, while Mohamad was in a wheelchair and was hauled up onto the platform by several security personnel. Read the rest of this entry »

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Mat Sabu: Police Land Rover rammed me

Joseph Sipalan
Malaysiakini
Jul 11, 11

PAS deputy president Mohamad Sabu today claimed police rammed a truck into the motorbike he was riding en-route to join Bersih 2.0 protesters last Saturday.

Visiting the Selangor state assembly building in a wheelchair, the usually jovial leader took a more sombre tone as he recounted his harrowing experience.

“I was on a motorbike on the way to Masjid Negara, when suddenly a Land Rover rammed into us. I didn’t know it was a police Land Rover at the time,” he told journalists at a press conference.

“The impact threw me off and I was rolling on the ground. They then brought me into the Land Rover and took me to a clinic in Jinjang, which referred me to the hospital.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Vague principles, contradictory policies

by Hafiz Noor Shams
The Malaysian Insider
Jul 06, 2011

JULY 6 — Some ideas are vague for a reason. In Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, the majority is afraid of commitment and responsibilities. It is simply impractical to have clear opinions or positions. Consistency arising from those opinions and positions is a barrier to success. One has to be pragmatic to be successful. Vagueness allows such pragmatism. To put it bluntly, it creates contradictions.

That is not too far off from the truth in our world. That is not too far off from the political culture in Malaysia. There are vague positions and from those ambiguities, contradictions.

1 Malaysia is an example. Despite all efforts to explain it by far too many sides, 1 Malaysia is still an ambiguous concept. It appeals to the idea of inclusiveness and equality, yet those with distaste for these very liberal ideas are the ones promoting it. There are of course true blue egalitarians within Barisan Nasional who are also promoting 1 Malaysia but when both racialists and egalitarians are able to appeal to 1 Malaysia in contradictory terms, the concept itself cannot escape the accusation of being ambiguous. Read the rest of this entry »

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Majlis pelancaran Misi Palestin: Mat Sabu tidak dibenar berpidato

By Fazy Sahir
June 19, 2011 | Free Malaysia Today

KUALA LUMPUR: Timbalan Presiden PAS Mohamad Sabu mendakwa pentadbiran Perdana Menteri Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak bertindak mengambil alih misi kemanusiaan rakyat Palestin dalam majlis yang dilancarkan malam tadi.

Ini berikutan beliau dan beberapa badan bukan kerajaan (NGO) Pakatan Rakyat digugurkan dari menyertai majlis Pelancaran Pasukan Lifeline4Gaza (LL4G) Malaysia itu.

Mat Sabu yang dijadualkan menyampaikan pidato dalam majlis pelancaran itu malam tadi di Stadium Badminton Kuala Lumpur, Cheras telah digugurkan daripada berbuat demikian.

Beliau hanya diberitahu oleh pihak penganjur bahawa ucapannya dibatalkan awal pagi semalam dan membuat keputusan untuk tidak hadir dalam majlis tersebut. Read the rest of this entry »

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Lawmaker sees red over his ‘pig head’

By Kuek Ser Kuang Keng
Jun 16, 11 | MalaysiaKini

A DAP assemblyperson in Selangor is seeing red after finding a photograph of him superimposed with a pig’s nose in a blog posting that also contained a fabricated ‘report’ that he had attempted sabotage his counterparts in PAS.

Sekinchan assemblyperson Ng Suee Lim submitted a printed copy of the doctored picture as well as a copy of the blog posting in his complaint filed at the Sekinchan police station yesterday.

The offending picture and posting were found on pro-Umno blog ‘Sungai Rapat Online’.

“I suspect the blog is owned by Perak exco member Hamidah Osman or her supporters, because 90 percent of the content is about her,” Ng told Malaysiakini when contacted. Read the rest of this entry »

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DAP masterminding UMNO for more than four decades?

UMNO’s Utusan Malaysia has today concocted a new wild allegation – accusing DAP of masterminding PAS’ welfare state agenda as a cover for the DAP’s Malaysian Malaysia concept.

Based on Utusan’s latest wild accusation, I am wondering whether to confess that DAP had been masterminding UMNO for more than four decades.

Let me put it straight to Utusan Malaysia – do you want DAP to confess that we have been masterminding UMNO for more than four decades? If so, I am prepared to give Utusan the “scoop of the century” of how the DAP had been masterminding UMNO for more than four decades.

The allegation was made today by Utusan Assistant Chief Editor Datuk Zaini Hassan in his “Cuit” column: “Negara kebajikan, negara Islam dan ‘Malaysian Malaysia’”.

If Utusan’s Assistant Chief Editor is serious about his allegation that DAP has masterminded PAS’ welfare state adopted at the recent Muktamar PAS, he should have the political acumen to discern that the DAP had in fact been masterminding the UMNO for more than for decades. Read the rest of this entry »

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While Najib claims welfare state, Utusan says DAP masterminds

By Shannon Teoh
June 15, 2011 | The Malaysian Insider

KUALA LUMPUR, June 15 — Umno’s Utusan Malaysia today accused DAP of masterminding PAS’s new welfare state agenda as a cover for its Malaysian Malaysia concept.

This comes despite Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s recent arguments that the Umno-led Barisan Nasional (BN) has already implemented a welfare state in its five decades in power.

Assistant chief editor Datuk Zaini Hassan wrote in his column that Malaysian Malaysia, first used by Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) when it was still part of Malaysia, would ignore special Malay and Bumiputera rights and lead to social unrest. Read the rest of this entry »

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Umno turning into the old PAS

By Hafiz Noor Shams
June 14, 2011 | The Malaysian Insider

JUNE 14 — If one had opined that PAS was more of a centrist than Umno 10 years ago, nobody would have believed it. It would have been an outrageous opinion. Yet today, it is no longer so foreign a prospect.

The recently concluded PAS internal election is the latest evidence of the party’s march to the centre. That election saw both the promotion of the so-called professional group to the leadership of the party and the adoption of a more realistic stance with regards to the Islamic state agenda.

The participation of PAS within Pakatan Rakyat has a lot to do with the reconfiguration of the party towards the political centre. While the criticism of ideological difference against the coalition as a whole remains valid, the alliance itself is the great engine that is pulling all of its members to a middle ground. That middle ground is proving to be the Malaysian centre. Read the rest of this entry »

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Facts about PAS and the Islamic state issue

By Pak Sako
June 13, 2011 | The Malaysian Insider

JUNE 13 — The “professionals” have been elected to PAS’s central working committee. PAS has trotted out a “welfare state” slogan. The party’s deputy president-elect, Mohamad Sabu, has been hailed in Malaysiakini as a “cosmopolitan democrat”. A moderate image of PAS is being actively advertised.

Yet the question that worries many non-Muslims and moderate Muslims remains: Has PAS abandoned its Islamic state ambition or hasn’t it?

For the answer, we need to go beyond slogans, media spin and the opinions of the politicians and examine the bare facts.

The bare facts are found in Clauses 3 to 8 of PAS’s constitution. They outline matters pertaining to party goals, laws and authority. Their key points, translated, are as follows: Read the rest of this entry »

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Five promising ideas from PAS’ new line-up

By Bridget Welsh
June 13, 2011
MalaysiaKini

ANALYSIS The victory of the progressives in Malaysia’s Islamic party has indeed served to inject greater dynamism into Pakatan Rakyat and strengthen PAS’ engagement in national politics.

The party nevertheless faces deep-seated suspicion by many non-Muslims and more secular Malays who see the election of the non-ulama team as a move to gain power than to genuinely move PAS towards the centre and towards the mantra that has guided the party for the last few years ‘PAS for All’.

The fact of the matter is that PAS will never appeal to all Malaysians as many reject religious parties and others remain apprehensive about the intolerant messages of PAS leaders in the past on issues of morality especially. Many will remain loyal to the BN and Umno no matter what.
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A re-branded PAS?

By Tan Siok Choo
Sun
13 Jun 2011

TAKEN collectively, three developments at PAS’s recent muktamar or general assembly have the potential to re-define Malaysian politics.

For the first time since 1983, an ulama (or religious leader) wasn’t retained or elected as deputy president, the second highest-ranked party official. The ulama also lost all three vice-presidential contests and reportedly won only six out of 18 central committee positions, which underscored the extent of the party’s makeover.

Equally notable, in his keynote speech at the muktamar, PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang Hadi announced that the party now aspired to create a welfare state while maintaining it wasn’t abandoning its quest for an Islamic state. Read the rest of this entry »

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In ‘Mat Sabu sex scandal’, PAS chiefs scent Umno fear

By Boo Su-Lyn
The Malaysian Insider
Jun 12, 2011

Mat Sabu has been described as the engine that will drive PAS forward. — file picKUALA LUMPUR, June 12 — PAS leaders are accusing Umno of being behind a sex video implicating Mohamad Sabu, saying it reflected the ruling Malay party’s desperation to find issue with their newly-elected deputy president.

PKR MP Zuraida Kamaruddin said she received a VCD in her mailbox recently that has a picture of Mohamad together with the words “Skandal Seks Mat Sabu” (Mat Sabu Sex Scandal), a letter with a forged PAS letterhead and a flyer containing pictures of Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim. Mat Sabu is the PAS leader’s moniker.

“This shows that Umno has degenerated into a distributor of ‘blue’ films,” PAS central committee member Khalid Samad told The Malaysian Insider today. Read the rest of this entry »

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Menolak pentadbiran Islam, Dr M lebih berjaya dari Karpal — Aspan Alias

The Malaysian Insider

9 JUN — Dr Mahathir Mohamad masih lagi hendak bercakap terlalu banyak dalam mempertahankan Umno. Niat beliau mungkin ikhlas untuk mempertahankan Umno kerana beliau adalah ahli Umno. Tetapi kata-kata beliau mungkin membantutkan usaha Umno untuk kembali mendapat penghormatan rakyat. Beliau sudah agak pelupa orangnya dan banyak kali apa yang beliau kata terhadap musuh politiknya, itulah yang beliau lazim lakukan.

Dalam isu PAS dengan pembaharuannya selepas muktamar parti itu hujung minggu lepas Dr Mahathir telah mengatakan yang Karpal Singh-lah yang berjaya mempengaruhi PAS supaya menolak perjuangan Islam parti itu sedangkan parti itu hanya hendak memberikan tumpuan yang lebih kepada negara kebajikan jika diberi mandat untuk memerintah. Itu adalah sebahagain besar dari pimpinan ciri Islam.
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Umno a hypocrite for anti-PAS welfare state stand, says Muslim cleric

By G. Manimaran
June 10, 2011
The Malaysian Insider

KUALA LUMPUR, June 10 — Former Perlis mufti Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin has labelled Umno a hypocritical party for slamming its political foe’s pro-welfare state stand raised at the PAS annual general assembly last week.

The popular Muslim cleric said Umno, as the ruling Barisan Nasional’s (BN) lynchpin which is also supposed to represent the Malay voice, should have supported the Islamist party’s idea instead of slamming it as conservative and fanatical.

“I don’t know Umno’s actual stand. Previously, Umno criticised PAS for being controlled by the ulamas, now with the professionals in charge they are still whacking the party.
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Mahu wujudkan negara berkebajikan? Langkah mayat ‘politik perkauman’ dulu

By Amaluddin Zhafir

Roketkini.com
8 June 2011

8 JUN – Entah apa yang dimaksudkan bekas Perdana Menteri Malaysia bila beliau menulis bahawa pertandingan jarang menghasilkan keputusan “menang-menang,” dengan semua yang bertanding berjaya.

Apa yang jelas, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad dalam blognya merujuk kepada muktamar PAS lepas yang mana menurut pandangannya, ada yang menang dan ada yang kalah.

Kenyataannya itu ada asasnya. Tetapi melihat kepada tuduhannya yang mengatakan Pengerusi DAP Karpal Singh berjaya menggugurkan matlamat PAS untuk menubuhkan negara Islam, nampaknya kenyataan tersebut agak dangkal yang datang daripada seorang tokoh besar. Read the rest of this entry »

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