Anthony Loke: DAP to stop attending Pakatan Council if Hadi doesn’t show

PETALING JAYA: DAP will not attend the Pakatan Rakyat Leadership Council meeting if PAS representatives are not attending it.

Its National organising secretary Anthony Loke said DAP will attend the Pakatan Rakyat leadership council meeting provided that PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang is present as well.

"I am referring to a media report quoting sources who claimed that our secretary general, Lim Guan Eng should apologise to his PAS counterpart Datuk Mustafa Ali during that meeting.

"I would like to emphasize that the necessity to do so does not arise at all and DAP will never bow to any pressure from any party," he said in a statement released on Tuesday.

He added that the party leadership stood behind Lim on the issue of a local government election in Penang and supported the state government implementing the Local Government Elections Act 2012 which was approved by the Penang State Assembly, under the Federal Constitution.

"We reiterate our position that all efforts by the state government for the election were informed by Lim to both Hadi and Mustafa, and they had not objected it before.

"During this debate for the last two weeks, it has been evident that there are many PAS leaders including MP's and veterans who have expressed support to restore the local government elections around the country," he said adding that the elections were parallel to the Pakatan common policy.

Loke said that their Central Executive Committee (CEC) has approved a resolution that DAP leaders will attend the meeting with the presence of the PAS president.

"This is to avoid a situation where any decision reached in PR is not sanctioned by PAS," he said.

Last Wednesday, Mustafa said, contrary to Lim’s allegations, PAS was never consulted on local council elections in Penang before it was tabled in the state assembly in May 2012.

Prior to that Lim had said that he had contacted both Hadi and Awang on the phone before pushing for the implementation of the elections.

Denying this, Mustafa said PAS was only consulted after the enactment was tabled via a phone call from Lim.