SHAH ALAM — PAS denied Utusan Malaysia’s report today that Datuk Dr Hasan Ali and Nasharudin Mat Isa will be dropped as candidates for the coming general election, saying it has yet to finalise its list.
“The issue of candidacy has not been brought up yet. We don’t know when the next general election will be. Wait till the nomination day.
“Not true, not true [that we are dropping the two]. We haven’t even looked at the list of candidates yet,” PAS president Datuk Seri Hadi Awang told reporters after launching a 10-point document titled “PAS offers a nation of care and opportunity”, here at the PKNS Complex.
Quoting unnamed sources, the Umno-owned newspaper said Selangor executive councillor Hasan will be “removed” by Selangor PAS, with blessings from the PAS central committee.
“Mingguan Malaysia understands that the PAS central committee has also dropped a few other PAS leaders who are not well-liked by the pro-Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim group, otherwise known as Erdogan, and among them is former PAS deputy president Nasharudin Mat Isa,” the Sunday edition of the newspaper, Mingguan Malaysia, reported.
The report follows Selangor PAS information chief Shaari Sungib’s remarks, published in several blogs, that it is highly likely Hasan will be dropped as a candidate.
According to Mingguan Malaysia, Shaari had said that the former Selangor PAS chief did not garner enough nominations.
When asked to comment today, PAS deputy president Mohamad Sabu dismissed Shaari’s explanation.
“We don’t even know whether we are nominated or not (at the division level),” he said.
Hasan, who is in charge of the state’s Islamic affairs portfolio, previously defended a raid by the Selangor Islamic Religious Department (Jais) on the Damansara Utama Methodist Church (DUMC) in August, claiming there was proselytisation of Muslims on the premises.
Widely seen as a religious conservative, Hasan has been at odds with the ruling Pakatan Rakyat (PR) state government’s seemingly liberal policies on several occasions, most notably his push for a beer sale ban in the country’s most developed state earlier this year.
Utusan Malaysia last week sought to paint Hasan as the maker of an elusive match between Umno and PAS, claiming he was seen as a unifying factor for the Malay community in Selangor.
Since Election 2008, Umno has made repeated overtures to the Islamic party, claiming that a unification would guarantee the Malay community’s hold on political power.
But PAS has repeatedly snubbed the efforts and expressed its commitment towards PR and their common aim to oust Umno and Barisan Nasional from Putrajaya.
Today, Mohamad also declined to comment about seat allocations for the PR component parties for the upcoming elections.
“Still at the final stages of discussion,” he said. – MlaysianInsider
