In Selangor, no value to PAS’s pledge or promise

PAS secretary-general Datuk Mustafa Ali (second right) speaks during a press conference at the party's headquarters in Kuala Lumpur today. PAS today said it would leave it to the sultan of Selangor to decide on the new menteri besar. – The Malaysian Insider pic by Najjua Zulkefli, August 25, 2014. 

After taking nearly three weeks to decide who it supports as the Selangor menteri besar, PAS today did a volte-face and said it would leave it to the state ruler to decide who should get the post.

What it boils down to is this: that PAS cannot be trusted to keep its word, even if takes almost a month to come to a decision.

And beyond that, PAS has taken upon itself to assign powers to the sultan of Selangor that the Selangor constitution does not even give him – the power to decide who can be menteri besar.

The last we heard, the state ruler is a constitutional monarch and is guided by the law and the conventions set since Merdeka in 1957.

The convention is simple: the leader of a coalition of parties will recommend and endorse the lawmaker who has the confidence of the majority of assemblymen in the state legislature.

Only since 2008 has that convention been broken: in Terengganu, Perlis and then Perak. Two cases involved Barisan Nasional (BN) lawmakers and the third saw a change of government in Perak.

And today, PAS decided that it can ignore the convention and leave it to the state ruler to decide who should be the menteri besar. Not the coalition, and not the people.

"The special central committee meeting on August 25 agreed to leave it to the wisdom of the sultan of Selangor to determine the Selangor menteri besar‎ position," said PAS secretary-general Datuk Mustafa Ali after attending a meeting at the PAS headquarters in Kuala Lumpur today.

"We are making an open statement. When we say that we will leave it to the sultan, it means the sultan can choose," he said.

"We are not saying anything specific... You interpret it yourself."

With that, 13 PAS lawmakers in Selangor will not sign statutory declarations in support of Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, nor will the Islamist party endorse the PKR president for the job.

Not that it matters. Dr Wan Azizah has the support of 30 lawmakers in the 56-seat state legislature. She does not need the support of the 13 lawmakers.

But what does it tell you about PAS apart from the fact that it cannot be trusted?

It does not understand the rules of coalition politics and, worse, it is prepared to go beyond the law to get its way.

Did it consider coalition politics when both DAP and PKR agreed to let Datuk Seri Nizar Jamaluddin be Perak Menteri Besar in 2008 despite not having a majority of the seats?

Perhaps this just confirms PAS's true colours. The Islamist party that spoke of a welfare state before the general elections now talks about the Islamic criminal law hudud and punishments rather than charity and benevolence.

Today's decision by PAS has shown just how empty its “PAS for all” slogan really is. PAS is not for all. It is only for itself.

- TMI