A thorn in Penang’s side?

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Considered young and vocal, Penang PAS leader Muhammad Fauzi Yusof is training his guns on the DAP-led state government.

A YOUNG and vocal leader is now calling the shots in Penang PAS at a time when ties between PAS and the DAP have hit rock bottom.

Muhammad Fauzi Yusof (pic), 45, is considered young since many of the party’s top leaders are in their 60s and 70s.

In June, the Balik Pulau boy, who is a religious school head, was appointed Penang PAS commissioner, replacing 58-year-old Datuk Mohd Salleh Man.

Muhammad Fauzi, who obtained his degree in Islamic studies from a university in Syria, took charge of the state unit when the party was going through a rough patch with DAP over hudud laws.

Now that PAS is out of the state government, he doesn’t have to mince his words any longer.

Last week, he lashed out at the state government for denying allocation to a religious school which is privately owned by a party member in Balik Pulau in the south-west district of the island.

“Sekolah Rendah Islam Al-Ansor has been getting the allocation every year. But it has been stopped this year.

“The state government is practising favouritism and political discrimination,” he said.

According to him, the school received a letter on Sept 3 stating that it would receive the allocation, but the letter was retracted by a clerk from the district religious department who showed up at the school a few hours later.

“This is political interference by the state government. It shows that invisible hands are at work,” Muhammad Fauzi said, adding that the allocation was also withdrawn for another religious school in Permatang Pauh on the mainland.

In July, Muhammad Fauzi said the party had engaged lawyers to sue the state government over the sacking of councillors from PAS.

There is much mud-slinging in Penang between leaders of PAS, DAP and PKR.

State PKR Youth leaders have demanded that Mohd Salleh quit as president of the Penang Islamic Religious Council since PAS is no longer part of the state government.

Mohd Salleh said he would serve his term as he was appointed by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.

The Permatang Pasir assemblyman was made the council president in July 2012 after PAS grassroots leaders expressed unhappiness that their leader was not given an important position in the state.

They said PAS was left out, even though the party had helped the then-Pakatan Rakyat win 30 of the 40 state seats and 10 of the 13 parliamentary seats in Penang during the general election in May 2013.

Even after PAS severed ties with DAP, Mohd Salleh attended a meeting with 29 other Pakatan assemblymen in June and affirmed that he was part of the Penang government.

It was perplexing as his stand differed from his party’s. Some speculated that Mohd Salleh would cross over to Gerakan Harapan Baru, the PAS splinter group which was later launched as Parti Amanah Negara, but it never came about. Instead, he was replaced by Muhammad Fauzi.

The bad blood between PAS and DAP is heating up with PAS saying it would contest the seats held by DAP, including Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng’s Air Putih state seat.

This followed the state government’s move to sack some councillors from PAS after the split with DAP.

DAP is not worried about a PAS challenge since the latter only has poc­kets of influence on mainland Penang. Its main rival in the constituencies is Umno.

PAS contested six state and two parliamentary seats in the 2013 election in Penang but only won in Permatang Pasir, which has been its bastion since the 1999 general election.

Datuk Mohd Hamdan Abdul Rahman was a three-term assemblyman there. Upon his death in 2009, Mohd Salleh won the seat in a by-election.

Mohd Salleh retained the seat in the last general election. Now, there is speculation that Muhammad Fauzi will be fielded there in the next general election.

Muhammad Fauzi had been critical of the state government even when PAS was part of it. He had threatened to pull out the party’s representatives from state government posts for not being given appropriate roles and positions.

Now that DAP and PAS are hostile to each other, he will go all out to ensure that Malay votes do not go the DAP way, unlike in the past two general elections when they were allies.

The views expressed are entirely the writer’s own.