Mahathir launches scathing attacks on PAS

LANGKAWI: Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad launched into his fiercest of attacks against PAS with just hours to go before campaigning ceases, describing the Islamist party as advocating a misguided religious path just to gain political mileage.
The former premier, who is now leading the Pakatan Harapan Opposition alliance, tore into PAS, saying the party was the root cause of Muslims becoming disunited in the country, and its behaviour now proves a beyond reasonable doubt that it is a political party, not a religious organisation.
"Nowhere in the world, it says that to be a Muslim, one must become a PAS member. There are 1.7 billion Muslims in the world, and hardly any are PAS members."
Mahathir said that PAS has split up the very fabric of becoming a good practising Muslim here by advocating deviant teachings, and by poisoning the minds of their followers with the politics of hatred and deceit.
PAS is contesting a majority of the 222 parliament and 505 state seats in the 14th election, even more than the dominant party – Umno – of Barisan Nasional (BN).
But their entry has complicated the electoral process as it has evoked multiple cornered fights in a majority of the constituencies as PAS is contesting as a third bloc called "Gagasan Sejahtera".
Pundits foresee PAS splitting the votes, thus enabling BN to win by default as most PAS supporters were previously with Pakatan.
Mahathir, who was nursing a viral bug, paused on several occasions during his rally speech last night but continued after sipping water.
Speaking before an audience in Bukit Malut, whose ancestors originally hailed from Myanmar, Mahathir said that the Opposition has been deprived of fair contest since the start of the election.
But the battle to regain control of Malaysia continues, he asserted.
Later, Mahathir said that he is hoping for the best as the voters now know what is going on with the advent of technology.
His hope is that they will make a wise choice for the future of the country.