PAS slaps rebel Kedah leader with gag order

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/mobile/malaysia/article/pas-slaps-rebel-kedah-leader-with-gag-order/

PAS slaps rebel Kedah leader with gag order
By Shazwan Mustafa Kamal

KUALA LUMPUR, March 3 — Kedah PAS leader Datuk Phahrolrazi Mohd Zawawi confirmed today he has been barred by the party from making any more statements on the current crisis in the state administration.

The Kedah PAS deputy commissioner I said he had been directed by the PAS central committee not to issue any more statements for now, and that the directive was given to him when he attended a meeting at the PAS headquarters in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday night.

“I was called to the headquarters and told not to say anything until a meeting between PAS central committee leaders and the division,” he was quoted by The Star as saying today.

Phahrolrazi (picture), who is also Kuala Kedah PAS division chief, said he would explain his actions to PAS central committee leaders at a meeting scheduled for tonight, and will include why he did not want to renew his tenure as state executive councillor and why he had directed his division deputy chairman Datuk Amiruddin Hamzah to also quit his state post.

PAS’s entire central leadership will meet its Kedah leaders today to solve the situation. An emergency central working committee meeting was held last Thursday but leaders were unable to resolve the matter.

The meeting was held after both Kedah PAS deputy commissioners Phahrolrazi and Datuk Dr Ismail Salleh rejected their reappointments to the state executive council (exco), leaving just eight instead of 10 being sworn in on Tuesday.

Vice-president Salahuddin Ayub said on Thursday all central committee members would attend the meeting with Kedah PAS this weekend with “both sides” to reach a final solution to the matter.

Phahrolrazi has said he refused the appointment as he could no longer work with Azizan and their differences had reached a “critical” level.

However, Phahrolrazi suggested he could be persuaded to rejoin the exco on certain conditions but refused to disclose what they were.

The PAS leadership said earlier this week it wanted all 10 current Kedah state excos sworn in for the 2012 term.

The Islamist party’s secretary-general, Datuk Mustafa Ali, confirmed rumours that Phahrolrazi and Ismail had declined to accept their re-appointments, but stressed that the matter was only a “technical issue.”

He said that PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang had met with Azizan as well as the two excos on February 17, where they had explained to him the “difficulties” in continuing their duties.