PKR hits out at PAS after leaked WhatsApp message
The Malaysian Insider – 2 hours 49 minutes agoRELATED CONTENT
- PKR hits out at PAS after leaked WhatsApp message
PKR wants its Pakatan Rakyat partner, PAS, to take disciplinary action against a member of its central committee for discussing leaving the coalition in a leaked WhatsApp message that has gone viral online.
PKR strategy director Rafizi Ramli also hit out at the PAS member, Dr Mohd Zuhdi Marzuki, for the racial and religious tone in the leaked message.
In a sign of escalating tension between both parties as a result of the current Selangor menteri besar crisis, Rafizi also demanded that PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang state the number of PAS leaders who held such views.
"What is the disciplinary action to be taken against Zuhdi, who had suggested a treacherous proposal, going against the agreement inked between PAS and Pakatan and the people who had voted for PAS and Pakatan?
"We want to know how many from the PAS central leadership hold such racist and anti-democractic views like Zuhdi," he said in a statement today.
PAS central committee members had been discussing the possibility of leaving Pakatan as the current Selangor MB crisis revealed cracks between the party and PKR.
Online news portal Malaysiakini reported that the screenshot of the leaked conversation revealed that Zuhdi was discussing the possibility of teaming up with rival Umno to form a simple majority government and at the same time to retain embattled Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim as MB.
More distressingly, the tone of the conversation was blatantly racist, reported the portal, with Zuhdi saying that his scenario would return political dominance to the Malays and allow them to check "DAP and non-Muslims".
"After this, if DAP and non-Muslims make noise about the Allah issue or raids, we can just swat them away.
"At the end of this year just change the borders to return all the Malay-Muslim political power," Malaysiakini reported him as writing in the conversation.
Rafizi said that while differences of opinion are allowed in any organisation, Zuhdi had gone too far with his racist statement which was tantamount to a betrayal of Pakatan.
"The words that he had used were not talking about possible scenarios but are reflective of racist and hate sentiments. He had also indirectly stated his approval for Jais's action against other religious practitioners," Rafizi said, referring to the Selangor religious authorities which had seized Malay and Iban-language Bibles earlier this year.
In expressing his regrets, Rafizi said the statement by the PAS research centre operations director also went against the policy and agreements made by his party with the other two partners in Pakatan.
This includes going against PAS's muktamar pledge to reject a unity government with Umno and Pakatan's common policy framework which rejects racial politics and promotes justice for all.
It has also gone against the tripartite Pakatan Rakyat Buka Jingga and PAS's pledge after signing the GE13 Pakatan manifesto and the Bersih 2.0 charter which clearly states a firm commitment to justice as well as to free and fair elections.
However, Zuhdi in his Facebook posting denied he was solely responsible for putting forth the idea of leaving Pakatan.
"I was just outlining scenarios based on my imagination because I was asked to come up with a few scenarios. But I am not part of the group that has proposed to leave Pakatan. This is slander aimed at implicating me as the one who came up with the idea," Malaysiakini reported him as saying. – July 29, 2014.
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