UMNO should take on PAS in the next general election as the Islamist party cannot be trusted, said Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah.
 
“We have always fought PAS. The party has been a pain since inception in 1951,” the 12-term MP said in an interview with The Malaysian Insight on Wednesday.
 
“PAS has been troubling Umno since. Even today, they are troubling Umno. It’s nothing new,” said the Kelantan prince.
 
The bad history aside, Tengku Razaleigh said PAS cannot be trusted to help Umno in GE15 as it is part of Perikatan Nasional.
 
The 84-year-old said although PAS and Umno signed the Muafakat Nasional pact two years ago, the Islamists were insincere. 
 
“Even in Tg Piai, when they were already with us, they did not vote for us.
 
“PAS has about 3,000 members in Tg Piai but not even 1,000 of them voted for us. They are not trustworthy allies. Not even in Semenyih.
 
“PAS is like a prostitute, going back and forth between DAP and Semangat 46,” he said referring to the time he helmed the Umno splinter party.
 
He had forged an alliance with PAS under the Angkatan Perpaduan Ummah banner in the 1990 election.
 
The Gua Musang MP said Umno had lost Terengganu to PAS because then Umno president Najib Razak had made a mistake.
 
“The reason why we lost Terengganu to PAS was because Najib, at the last minute and without consulting anyone else, agreed to three-cornered fights.
 
“But that puts Umno at a disadvantage as it has to fight everyone else. As a result we lost more seats and PAS benefited.”

Tengku Razaleigh said religion was very important to the voters in the East Coast states of Kelantan and Terengganu.
 
“They looked at PAS and decided to vote for it because they were sympathetic to religious organisations and that was how PAS got Terengganu. And also because of the little mistake we had made.”
 
Tengku Razaleigh scoffed at the idea of semi-cooperation between Umno and PAS in the next elections.
 
“We cannot agree because you cannot have half-baked strategies where you accept three-cornered fights here and straight fights there. 
 
“I advocate that we fight PAS (in the next elections),” said the Umno leadership council advisor.
 
Tengku Razaleigh was commenting on the fraught relationships between the country’s three Malay parties after Umno announced that it would not cooperate with Bersatu in GE15.
 
Although allied to Umno via Muafakat Nasional, PAS wishes to also maintain ties with Bersatu. Over Umno’s protests, PAS had joined Perikatan Nasional last year and helped Bersatu to wrest Sabah from Umno in the state elections in September..
 
As for Bersatu, Tengku Razaleigh said it will not be getting a free pass this time from Umno.

“Bersatu is a new party without a following. In Gua Musang, it has only four or five people. Even Hamzah Zainuddin hasn’t got a base and as such he has to contest in Larut as he cannot contest in Ipoh.

“As for Mustapa Mohamed, we are taking it back. We are going to fight there. PAS is strong there but we have defeated them before,” said Tengku Razaleigh.

Hamzah were Mustapa are among the 15 Umno MPs who defected to Bersatu after the 2018 general election. 

“It’s easier to fight Bersatu than PAS. But they (Bersatu) want PAS to help them and they were hoping to get Umno to help them too. 

“It would be a shoo-in for them if they were to get Umno’s help. But I don’t think we want to give in to traitors.” – March 12, 2021.