KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 9 - One of the stories making the rounds after the fall of Perak to Pakatan Rakyat in Election 2008 was about moves by Umno to form an alliance with arch enemy, Parti Islam SeMalaysia (Pas).
Umno and Pas officials were willing to speak about this Umno-inspired strategy in private but no one wanted to go on record until now.
In an interview with Harakah, Pas' commissioner for Perak, Ustaz Ahmad Awang said that Umno officials in the state were stunned by the loss of power on March 8.
"At first, they offered a few Pas assemblymen millions of ringgit to cross over and join them. The first person to get the offer was the Pasir Panjang state assemblyman who is now the Menteri Besar. But when this approach failed, they asked Pas Perak to form a coalition government with Umno and Barisan Nasional. '' he said.
Ahmad claimed that Umno used agents to meet him and party spiritual leader Dato Nik Aziz Nik Mat to put forward this proposal.
"They used a few muftis, senior government officials, NGOs and also a BN MP who is my relative... a senior Umno leader who hails from Perak and a senior government official whose wife is from Perak tried to meet me for discussions.
They were accompanied by a rector from a tertiary institution in Perak. This senior Umno official is a Cabinet minister who spoke to me on the phone and asked for a four eyes meeting, '' he recalled.
The meeting did not happen but the Umno official and his delegation attemped to meet Ahmad at his home in Balai Kuliyyah Tasawwur Islam in Simpang Empat, Semanggol but failed to do so because the place was guarded by Pas volunteers.
He noted that even after Nizar was sworn in as the menteri besar, there have been moves by Umno agents to get Pas to leave Pakatan Rakyat and work together with Umno in the name of Malay unity.
The Malaysian Insider reported last year that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi sent out feelers to Pas leaders including Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang, Nasharuddin Mat Isa and Datuk Mustafa Ali to explore possibility of Malay unity talks.
Abdullah and the Pas officials met several times but when the talksbecame public knowledge, there was a backlash in Pas with Nik Aziz, Husam Musa and others hitting out at attempts by some of their colleagues to bury the hatchet with Umno.
The talks also exposed the rift in Pas over Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's role and standing in the Opposition coalition.
The PM hoped to drive a wedge between the Pas leaders and bring about the collapse of the Pakatan Rakyat alliance.
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