Zahid knows Umno better than you, PAS president Hadi told

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 3 — Umno information chief Shahril Hamdan said PAS president Tan Sri Abdul Hadi Awang has no standing to make claims about the desires of the Malay nationalist party.

Abdul Hadi could not understand Umno members better their own leader, Shahril said after the PAS chief disputed Umno president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s rejection of their political cooperation.

“So, of course it is the Umno president who can speak on behalf of the party.

“It cannot be that the PAS president knows more about Umno and should teach Umno members. That is not the work of a friend,” he said on Facebook today.

Earlier, Abdul Hadi claimed at the PAS Muktamar today that Ahmad Zahid’s dismissal of the two parties’ partnership in the Muakafat Nasional did not represent what the Umno grassroots wanted.

This evening, Shahril said efforts to create rifts in Umno through claims that Ahmad Zahid was working for his personal interests would fail.

He said this was because Umno’s position on political matters was jointly decided by its five most senior leaders or the party’s supreme council.

“Umno is not looking to be an enemy, but we are being treated as if we are the adversary, including by certain individuals in PAS,” said Shahril.

Shahril also shot back at Abdul Hadi and provided a list of 10 statements by the PAS president and the Islamist party’s other leaders openly criticising Umno.

He also insisted that Umno had tried repeatedly since its 2020 general assembly to forge the partnership with PAS without success.

“Even until the Melaka state election last year, Umno’s request was only for PAS to use its own logo to contest,” he said, before noting that it has only received hostility from PAS.

PAS and Umno entered a political partnership via MN in 2019, which was meant to be formalised in May 2020 before this was disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Since then, the Islamist party has become a formal member of the Perikatan Nasional coalition.

Yesterday, Ahmad Zahid dismissed his party’s partnership with PAS in MN, saying the foundational trust was lost when the Islamist party chose Bersatu in PN over Umno.