PAS denies still backing Hamzah as opposition leader

PAS denies still backing Hamzah as opposition leader

PAS deputy president Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man says the party has already decided to take over the role.

PAS deputy president Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man (left) said opposition leader Hamzah Zainudin’s replacement will be named ‘soon’.
PETALING JAYA:
PAS has denied that its 43 MPs are supporting Larut MP Hamzah Zainudin to stay on as opposition leader despite his sacking from Bersatu in February.

PAS deputy president Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man said the party has already decided to take over the role, with Hamzah’s replacement to be named “soon”.

He said the new opposition leader would be named before the next Dewan Rakyat meeting in June, Utusan Malaysia reported.

“We have the candidate,” he said.

Previously, Bersatu’s Tanah Merah MP, Ikmal Hisham Abdul Aziz, claimed that a majority of the 69 opposition MPs wanted Hamzah to continue leading the bloc in the Dewan Rakyat.

Ikmal claimed that this included all of PAS’s MPs and 13 of Bersatu’s 19 MPs.

Bersatu president Muhyiddin Yassin’s loyalists had urged PAS to name the new opposition leader swiftly, insisting that Hamzah had lost the credibility to remain in the role after being sacked from the party.

While Perikatan Nasional, now chaired by PAS vice-president Ahmad Samsuri Mokhtar, was supposed to name the new leader of the opposition at the end of March, no decision has been made yet.

Earlier this week, PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang said the matter had yet to be finalised and there was no rush since the Dewan Rakyat will only reconvene in June.

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