The go-ahead to the PKR Kelantan leaders to continue serving in the state administration was confirmed by the party’s political bureau at a meeting here yesterday, according to PKR Kelantan chief Ab Aziz Ab Kadir.
He said in a statement today that he briefed the bureau on Kelantan’s current political scenario before it made the decision.
Based on his feedback, he said, the bureau agreed to allow the party’s political appointees in Kelantan to remain in their posts on the strength of menteri besar Ahmad Yakob’s statement that the PAS government still needed PKR’s cooperation in administering the state.
Aziz said the bureau also retained him as the PKR Kelantan chairman.
He thanked PKR president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and the political bureau for giving him the trust to lead the state PKR.
“I and the Kelantan PKR will continue our commitment to strengthen the position of PKR in Kelantan, especially in facing the 14th general election,” he added.
Aziz was accompanied at the meeting by the leaders of the Kelantan PKR youth and women’s wings.
PAS broke off relations with its long-time ally at the end of its last general meeting in April.
Wan Azizah gave the Kelantan PKR leaders until the end of July to resign from their posts but none of the appointees had turned in their resignation letters after the deadline lapsed.
Last week, she explained that the appointees were still waiting for their reimbursements to be paid by the state government, as they had been providing aid to their respective constituencies out of their own pockets.
Kelantan PAS, in response, denied that the state government had withheld reimbursements owed to the PKR political appointees in the state.
As with PKR in Kelantan, the Islamist party’s leaders are still continuing to serve in the PKR-led Selangor administration.