KUALA LUMPUR, June 1 — PAS president Tan Sri Abdul Hadi Awang today said his party was offered to join a coalition government under Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim after the 15th general election that took place on November 19 last year.
He claimed the offer was brokered by certain vested parties from both within and without the country.
“An offer to join the government is made after the election. No offer was extended recently,” he said in a news conference after the Terengganu International Summit 2023 that was also broadcast on Facebook and YouTube this afternoon.
The Marang MP was responding to denials of such an offer from the ruling Pakatan Harapan (PH) and Barisan Nasional (BN) that made political headlines this week.
He insisted that the offer was made even if politicians from the ruling parties refused to admit to it.
“They come from within the country, some from abroad. Everyone came to see me to persuade, but I answered just like before, they don't know about Malaysian politics,” he said.
He said that the government led by Anwar is dominated by non-Malay Muslims and claimed that such situations will disrupt the majority of the country’s aspirations.
"Therefore, we rejected the offer of cooperation with the current government, instead we will continue to empower Perikatan Nasional (PN) and invite other parties to join us because we are increasingly gaining a place in the hearts of the people," he said.
Previously, Abdul Hadi claimed that several individuals had called and invited him for a meeting to offer PAS a chance to join the ruling coalition.
The deputy chairman of Perikatan Nasional (PN) claimed that the offer appeared because PH, especially PKR realised that its position was not strong, not to mention that the party's number of Malay seats was not as many as PAS.
