Simmering rivalry erupts into the open at PAS meet as deegates from different camps attack each other

As soon as debates started in the PAS assembly today, grassroots leaders took to the floor to vent their feelings about rifts in the party that have resulted from the feud among the party’s top leadership.

Delegates started giving emotive speeches about the rivalry that has been brewing throughout the party even during the tabling of the party’s innocuous 2013-2014 annual report.

This prompted the party’s permanent chairman Datuk Abu Kassim Abdullah to remind delegates to focus only on the report and leave the policy debates for later.

However, this did not dissuade delegates such as Muhammad Qadi from Kalabakan, Sabah, who used the podium to talk about the factionalism that is breaking out among his own division’s members.

“We have doctors, engineers and teachers who are joining our division and creating a group within our group,” Muhammad said when debating the annual report.

He also criticised the party’s central committee for allowing leaks of its decisions.

Emotions in the party have been high ever since PAS was embroiled in the Selangor Menteri Besar crisis in July.

The party is divided after its senior leadership came out with two contrasting decisions on the crisis.

The party’s elected central committee had gone along with the removal of Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim by its ally PKR. It also decided to go with PKR on who should take over from Khalid.

In contrast, the PAS president and the party’s powerful council of Muslim scholars had been against the removal of Khalid.

After Khalid was removed, they nominated Selangor assemblymen that had not been endorsed by PKR and DAP.

Another delegate, from Kuala Krai, Kelantan told of how branches and divisions in the state had started feuding with each other over which faction was right.

“Our rifts cannot be covered up anymore. Our members are attacking each other, our leaders are attacking each other.

“Does the leadership realise this? And what are you doing to resolve this,” said the Kuala Krai delegate who was known as Uztaz Zulkifli.

“We want the ulama to be strong and we do not want members to walk out on our deputy president just because we disagree with him,” said Zulkifli.

He was referring to how some members at the youth wing assembly had walked out of the hall during deputy president Mohamad Sabu’s speech.

Mohamad is often seen as the face of the central committee in the Selangor MB crisis.

Another delegate from Bayan Baru castigated the central committee for what he claimed was an incomplete report of its deliberations during its meetings.

“I only see the topics that were discussed but not the actions that were taken. Where are these actions?” said the delegate who did not give his name.

“We also don’t have a unified syllabus of our stated principles that we can recite before our division meetings. That’s why we are on the verge of breaking up and are feuding.” –TMI