PAS using Amanah as whipping boy, pushing ‘cold storage’ members to join splinter group

Those who have fallen out of favour with the PAS leadership but remain in the Islamist party are being accused of joining splinter party Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah), as if that’s the vilest thing in the world. The extent to which Amanah is used to bludgeon PAS members who fall out of favour is recounted by Suhaimi Md Saad, the former Pahang PAS information chief, who says he is now facing pressure from the party for allegedly joining Amanah. He hasn’t and remains a PAS member but by his own account posted on his Facebook page, he is being slandered because he defeated then Youth leader Nasrudin Hassan in 2013 to become the Indramahkota division vice-head. Since then, he has been seen as an opponent of the ulama and has been sidelined by the leadership, now made up of the ulama faction which ousted the progressives in many of the top posts in the June party elections. Suhaimi was ignored when Pahang PAS formed its state cabinet after the elections at the party’s 61st annual congress. The frosty reception has extended to the reception he received at mosques throughout the country as the number of invitations for him to preach has dwindled from eight to just three. “As for the other five, the excuse was restructuring. Apparently, there were other uztaz who wanted to come in and so on,” Suhaimi said on his Facebook page. One cancellation came over the phone just as he was approaching the venue, a mosque at Muadzam, and the reason given was that he had joined Amanah and was no longer a PAS member. “What!!! I’m still a PAS member,” Suhaimi replied as written on his Facebook page. Speaking to The Malaysian Insider, Suhaimi said he had no plans to join Amanah. “If I join Amanah, it would confirm the allegations against me by those who are defaming me.” The hatred PAS has for Amanah stems from the fact that the splinter party’s leaders were once comrades of the Islamist party’s conservative leaders. But they were also more progressive and favoured continued cooperation with PAS’s allies-turned-enemies, the secular DAP and PKR, under the now-defunct Pakatan Rakyat. When the progressives formed Amanah, they were labelled “traitors” by PAS, which has vowed never to work with them again. New Amanah member, former Bukit Besi (Terengganu) assemblyman Roslan Ismail said he went through a similar experience with one mosque. On October 1, Roslan said he received a letter dismissing him from giving a sermon at a surau in Darulsalam, Paka. He was no stranger at this surau as he had preached there previously. The issues faced by Suhaimi and Roslan are shared by several others in PAS who say they have been sidelined over differences of opinion and sympathy towards Amanah – a sign that it is PAS which is driving away its members, not Amanah poaching them. These developments, brought about by a bitter split over the future of the opposition and the end of the old pact, Pakatan Rakyat, is only serving to fuel membership in Amanah, which is out to make itself PAS’s replacement in the new Pakatan Harapan alliance. According to Amanah deputy president Salahuddin Ayub, the party now has has 50,000 members in less than a month since its launch, with 60% former PAS leaders. – October 10, 2015.