OBVIOUSLY, what I have tried to do in the last 14 months was a failure as PAS president Tan Sri Hadi Awang believed my suggestion for PAS to join Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s unity government was an official proposal and not my personal unofficial view.

PAS information chief Khairil Nizam Khirudin said that “it was in fact DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang who had the overture” that PAS joins the Anwar unity government.

Khairil is wrong. I am not the DAP adviser. In response to PAS deputy president Datuk Seri Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man on May 18, I have said:

“Firstly, let me clarify that the proposal for co-operation between the Anwar unity government and PAS to resolve the 60-year water problem and the lack of development in Kelantan, Terengganu, and Kedah is my personal idea and not that of DAP as I have not discussed it with the DAP secretary-general Anthony Loke Siew Fook or any other DAP leaders.

“In fact, this is why I declined Anthony Loke’s proposal to appoint me as a DAP mentor as I want to be able to give my personal views and ideas on the current political situation - national and international - without committing the DAP.

“I think my efforts of more than a year have proved this point and this clarification should put it beyond a shadow of doubt.”

Apparently, the PAS Information chief thinks otherwise. But did Hadi agree with his information chief?

I issued a statement on May 29 asking Hadi what he was smoking when he claimed after Tuan Ibrahim’s statement and my second clarification that PAS was offered the chance to join the Anwar unity government but Hadi wanted a dominant role as it had the most number of parliamentary seats of all political parties.

I said: “This shows Hadi’s lack of sincerity in wanting to be part of the unity government as he is more interested in PAS domination than in unity.

“Or could Hadi mistake my suggestion that PAS should work together with the Anwar unity government to resolve long-standing issues of the 60-year water problem and the lack of development in Kelantan, Terengganu and Kedah as an official invitation to Hadi for PAS to join the Anwar unity government?”

Let Hadi state that he thought my proposal was and official one on behalf of the Anwar unity government and let him explain whether he would accept my three proposals before PAS joins the Anwar unity government.

Clearly, the PAS information chief is not in touch with the PAS president to issue the ridiculous statement that I was the one to make the overture for PAS to join the Anwar unity government.

Hadi had not acted as a responsible, honest and respected Islamic leader in the run-up to the 15th General Election (GE115) last November as he was found to be the most strident in inciting ethnic-based narratives on social media in the lead-up to GE15 according to an independent report revealed yesterday (May 30).

The report entitled “Social Media monitoring of Malaysia’s 15th General Elections” said Hadi and his party were complicit to incitement by neither calling out nor restricting social media users from further spreading hate in relation to ethnic groups.

“So these actors are fuelling hate narratives as well as user-generated comments and they were silent, so we can say they are complicit since they did not call out. It was very telling through the entire monitoring period,” Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ) executive director Wathshlah Naidu said during the report’s launch in Kuala Lumpur.

With a total of 99,563 unique messages on social media analysed between October 20 and November 26 last year, the report found that “a significant majority” of social media posts comprised ethnic and religion-based narratives.

Wathshlah said Hadi himself was the sole individual with two posts reaching “Level Three” severity for his posts which were categorised as containing dehumanising and hostile language.

Citing a social media post by Hadi ahead of the November polls, the report said the lawmaker has actively propagated anti-Chinese sentiments and antagonised DAP through the language used which was further exacerbated by misinformation and disinformation.

“In fact, Hadi’s aforementioned TikTok posting on Malay election candidates fielded by DAP as ‘cunning and dangerous’ was found to have the highest engagement at all social media platforms combined at almost 2.5 million,” the report added.

Will Hadi apologise for his irresponsible and dishonest role in the social media in the run-up to GE15 as revealed by the report? - May 31, 2023

Retired DAP supremo and former Iskandar Puteri MP Lim Kit Siang, 82, has a colourful political career spanning 57 years. 

https://focusmalaysia.my/kit-siang-concedes-defeat-to-hadi-for-failing-to-draw-the-line-between-personal-opinion-and-daps-official-stance/