PAS has expressed willingness to work with MIC and MCA within Perikatan Nasional (PN), subject to endorsement from the coalition’s top leadership.
PAS spiritual leader Hashim Jasin said that in principle, the Islamic party had no issue working with any party except DAP.
“For this cooperation to become a reality, it will require further discussions at the top leadership level,” he said in an Utusan Malaysia report.
He added that PN was open to accepting other parties to further strengthen the coalition ahead of the next general election.
MIC president SA Vigneswaran announced on Saturday that the party was open to talks with other parties, while deputy president M Saravanan said the party’s direction would be decided at its annual general meeting in October.
Saravanan recently said that MIC felt like an “unwanted guest” in the current government as it had not been offered any posts.
Barisan Nasional (BN) chairman and Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi however insisted that MIC’s future would be more secure if it remained with BN.
Yesterday, FMT reported that Balachandran G Krishnan, information chief of PAS’s non-Muslim supporters’ wing, had expressed willingness to re-establish its partnership with MIC, with whom it had cooperated during the administrations of Muhyiddin Yassin and Ismail Sabri Yaakob.
Hashim, a former Arau MP, said PAS rejected any calls to join the unity government, even if the party was offered the position of deputy prime minister.
He was responding to a Malaysiakini report in which PKR central leadership council member Maszlee Malik said PAS would be better off supporting the Anwar Ibrahim administration, where it could potentially be given such a position.
“We will not join (the unity government) as long as DAP is a part of it. We’ve had too many (negative) experiences with DAP in the past.
“However, cooperation with Umno remains open, and we’ve never closed the door to negotiations towards this,” he said.
