PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang can go ahead and form a unity government with Umno and Barisan Nasional (BN), but he should not use malicious and senseless excuses to do so, DAP secretary general Lim Guan Eng today said.
DAP sec-gen Lim Guan Eng said Hadi can go ahead and form a UG with Umno if it wants to, but must not make false and malicious accusations against DAP.
Lim, who is also Penang chief minister, shot back at Abdul Hadi over the latter’s remarks that DAP means to rule the country on its own with a DAP-only ‘shadow cabinet’.
“Hadi is purposely trying to play on racial sentiments. The longer I look at him, the more he seems to be an Umno leader instead. He has said he wants to form a unity government with Umno and BN. Now he attacks us. Is this his effort to seek an excuse to fulfil his wish of a unity government?
“If he wants to, he can go ahead, but don’t talk nonsense, and don’t make false and malicious accusations,” Lim told a press conference.
Yesterday, Abdul Hadi said that PAS is ready to end its ties with DAP, since DAP has created a ‘shadow cabinet’ without PAS and PKR. Last month, DAP announced that it will no longer work with Abdul Hadi after the latter had tabled a private members bill for hudud implementation without consulting the Pakatan Rakyat.
“If DAP wants to leave, then leave, I need to be in Malaysia, Malaysia is a multiracial country,” Hadi reportedly said, adding that “a shadow cabinet should not follow the interest of a certain group but instead take into account various matters in the Constitution”.
To this, Lim said Hadi’s accusations are baseless and do not make sense.
“When we introduced our portfolios, or as has been reported by the press as ‘shadow cabinet’, we are simply assigning portfolios to our 37 DAP MPs to be spokespersons of certain portfolios. This is so that we can fulfil our responsibility to the people as parliamentarians to debate constructively on a topic,” Lim said.
He added that unlike PAS, DAP MPs are multi-racial and all races are well-represented in the list of MP’s portfolios.
“If Hadi wants to point fingers, he must remember that for every finger he points, four fingers are pointed back at him,” Lim said.
Earlier, Lim had given a keynote address at the launch of the “Private Higher Education: Avoiding a Hidden Crisis” forum in Kuala Lumpur.
The forum explores the financial distress which many private higher education institutions face in the country, which could lead to an unseen education crisis. Among the findings include that up to 50% of private higher education institutions face losses before tax.
– The Rocket
