PAS insisted tonight that Selangor is still being run by a Pakatan Rakyat (PR) government, claiming its state executive councillors remained in the Khalid administration to ensure the pact does not fall.
PAS said that it will continue to defend the PR state government regardless who the mentri besar is.
“We still consider that it is a PR government. Our excos are representing PR after PKR and DAP excos were sacked,” PAS Secretary-General Datuk Mustafa Ali told the press.
“It doesn’t matter who is the mentri besar. As long as the government stands, we will defend it.”
Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim had sacked all six state executive councillors from PKR and DAP on Tuesday, purportedly for refusing to cooperate with him as Selangor mentri besar.
The two parties subsequently urged the remaining four PAS excos to boycott the weekly exco meeting on Wednesday as a show of solidarity, but the call was ignored by the four, who said they were instructed to carry on by Mustafa on August 10.
“If they did not come to work, then the state government falls. We are putting the priority of the public first,” Mustafa explained tonight.
The now party-less Khalid has so far resisted all attempts by his former colleagues in PKR to remove him, staying on in his post as mentri besar even after his sacking from the party last Saturday.
A press conference was hastily convened today where 28 PKR and DAP assemblymen, and two of their PAS counterparts, signed statutory declarations of support for PKR president Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail to replace the embattled Khalid.
PAS previously held out on declaring its position and is due to make its decision on August 17.
With today’s development, PR now has 30 of the state’s 56 assemblymen backing the PKR president to replace Khalid, which is more than half the legislative assembly.
Despite that, Khalid refused to acknowledge PKR and DAP’s claims of securing majority support to replace him, saying they needed to substantiate this with a motion of no confidence against him in the state assembly.
PAS also hit back at Khalid tonight for claiming that a PR government does not exist as the coalition itself is not registered. – themalaymailonline
