There will be no PAS-UMNO political collaboration - Mustafa Ali

PAS today stressed that there will be no political collaboration to be established with UMNO, even during the next general election.

PAS election director-general Datuk Mustafa Ali said the decision was made in line with the decision made by PAS Syura Council earlier.

"Up to the next election, there will be no political collaboration between PAS and UMNO," he told reporters after attending the briefing on the matter at Kolej Universiti Islam Zulkifli Muhammad in Taman Melewar here.

The briefing was also attended by PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang, deputy president Datuk Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man, spiritual leader Datuk Dr Haron Din and approximately 200 state-level leaders.

The issue of a political collaboration between PAS and UMNO became a hot topic of discussions after Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, in his policy speech at the UMNO General Assembly in early December last year, extended an olive branch to PAS, to jointly build and develop the country according to the principles of Islam.

Najib also repeated his aspiration to Abdul Hadi when both of them shared the stage at the Regional Al-Azhar Alumni Conference at end of the month.

Commenting further, Mustafa, however, did not rule out the possibility of PAS forging a close cooperation with UMNO in other sectors other than politics, such as in education and economy.

"We have explained the decision of the Syura Council to the members, all of them understand it.... now we will go down and explain to the grassroots," he said.