Amanah Youth believes the current cooperation between PAS and UMNO is increasingly focused on securing political power, particularly efforts to remove Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
Amanah Youth secretary Ahmad Shahir Mohd Shah said the two parties appeared to share an understanding on the matter, but questioned how they could maintain their respective principles while working towards the same political objective.
“Or can they only cooperate to gain power, and discuss what comes next afterwards?” he said in a statement today.
His remarks came amid growing discussions over potential cooperation between PAS and UMNO, particularly in preparation for the upcoming Melaka state election.
Previously, UMNO president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said Barisan Nasional (BN) would not surrender any of the seats it currently holds to other parties after BN won 21 of the 28 Melaka state seats in the 2021 state election.
However, an analysis by Ilham Centre found that if parliamentary votes were broken down according to state constituencies, Perikatan Nasional (PN) would have won 10 seats while BN secured only four.
Ilham Centre said PN’s demand for more seats could create a challenge for BN, which wants to defend all 21 constituencies it won in the 2021 Melaka election.
If BN insists on defending all 21 seats, only seven constituencies would remain available for PN to contest.
Ahmad Shahir also questioned the emphasis placed by PAS and UMNO on Malay unity, asking which segment of the Malay community the two parties were actually seeking to unite.
“We simply do not know which segment of the Malays they want to unite. They are using it as political capital and as the basis for working together,” he said.
He argued that recent developments suggested PAS and UMNO were placing greater emphasis on strengthening their political position and gaining power rather than clearly demonstrating the principles and original agendas they had traditionally championed.
“The cooperation between PAS and UMNO should not be viewed merely as an effort to unite the Malays. Instead, it should be seen as a political strategy to build a common force to confront Anwar and the government he leads,” Ahmad Shahir said.
