KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 30 — PAS vice-president Mohd Amar Abdullah reportedly said today that Muafakat Nasional’s (MN) effort to be formalised will be delayed, after the name was already taken by somebody else.

Malaysiakini reported him saying that the name has already been registered by others at the Registrar of Societies (RoS), and therefore the coalition between PAS and Umno needs to choose another name to be registered.

"I understand there are attempts to register, but could not register because the name is already used by someone else.

"The name is already in the registration of RoS, I do not know how, that is what I understand,” he reportedly said after attending the Kelantan government exco meeting in Kota Baru.

"That is why we cannot register, if we want to register there must be a name change,” he added by the daily.

Meanwhile, Mohd Amar clarified that despite this, there has been no suggestion to rename the pact.

He added that the coalition will continue to use MN as its official name and remain unregistered for now.

Barisan Nasional (BN) secretary-general Tan Sri Annuar Musa issued a reminder earlier that the registration process will take some time as the pre-registration works were still in progress.

MN is a pact between Umno and PAS based on their cooperation on matters related to Islam and the Malay community formalising it to be a political coalition.

MN was meant to be formalised in May this year but this was preempted by the Covid-19 pandemic.