TEMERLOH: Pas admitted today (Sept 14) that the party has never given up hopes to cooperate with Umno again to revive the Muafakat Nasional (MN) alliance.
President Tan Sri Abdul Hadi Awang said efforts were being made to lure Malay leaders and non-Muslims who were not extreme.
"Yes, yes… Pas is still open to cooperate with Umno," he told reporters at the 70th Pas annual muktamar at the Al-Makmur complex in Kerdau here today.
When asked about Umno's reaction towards reviving MN, Hadi said there were differences between Umno as a party and the people in Umno.
"Umno has its own 'undang-undang tubuh' (constitution) and some have 'lari' (strayed away) from the constitution, whereas some still remain strong to its policies.
"Umno and Pas had previously cooperated together when fighting for the country's independence, and we were together when placing Islam as the official religion," he said.
Referring to the formation of the MN alliance, Hadi said Umno president Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was not involved in the talks as he was on leave.
"Initially, we had discussed uniting the Malay-Muslims with the Umno leadership, but it did not involve Zahid....several Umno leaders (were present). He (Zahid) was not involved.
"We agreed to gather Malay-Muslims members of parliament to take over the government and we managed, but it was not strong (referring to the previous Perikatan Nasional government).
"Ini cerita dululah (this is an old story), but there has been some impact whereby some Umno leaders joined us and a small group remained with Pakatan Harapan," he said.
In his policy speech when opening the muktamar earlier, Hadi said Pas remained firm in its commitment to revitalise the true spirit of MN and had no intention of aligning with Pakatan Harapan.
On Sept 12, Pas Youth chief Afnan Hamimi Taib Azamudden said they were open to the idea of cooperating with Umno under the spirit of Islamic unity if they decided to withdraw from the unity government.