Bersatu part of Muafakat, Monday meeting affirms

They told The Malaysian Insight that the decision to accept formally Bersatu into the pact was made in a meeting on Monday night involving the founding MN members – Umno and PAS.

Concerns were raised over Bersatu’s status in MN as the meeting only involved Umno and PAS, which later issued an official statement about officially registering the pact, without mentioning Bersatu.

“Bersatu was invited (to join MN), we never applied. We replied to the invite and agreed to join.

“The meeting between Umno and PAS on Monday agreed to accept Bersatu officially but they did not announce it,” said a Bersatu source.

Party president Muhyiddin Yassin accepted the MN invitation in August.

Bersatu supreme council member Dr Faiz Naaman said he was surprised why the MN statement did not include any mention of his party.

“Why only Umno and PAS representatives signed the statement? Bersatu agreed to join MN in August,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

The Monday meeting was reported earlier to be a pow-wow between the leaders of the three parties on the direction of the government, especially after Umno expressed disappointment over the manner it was being side-lined and bullied by Bersatu.

However, that meeting did not take place, instead Umno and PAS met on the need to formalise the MN pact.

Following the meeting, MN secretaries-general Annuar Musa and Takiyuddin Hassan said MN would be registering as an official body under the Registrar of Societies (RoS) but did not include Bersatu’s name in the agreement.

There were then speculations that Bersatu was left out of the charter and this was Umno’s final blow to the fledgling Malay party.

However, Annuar tweeted yesterday urging the public to stop speculating on Bersatu’s position in MN, saying that Umno’s demands are just to fortify the Perikatan Nasional government.

“The intention of Umno to renegotiate a new deal with Bersatu is to strengthen the PN government.”

Takiyuddin also confirmed this by tweeting the offer letter to Bersatu by MN and stating cryptically the offer had been accepted.

“If there is an offer, acceptance and consideration, then there is a binding contract between Umno, PAS and Bersatu in Muafakat Nasional,” he said.

Trouble over seats

Padang Terap Bersatu leader Muzzammil Ismail warns that leaving Bersatu out of the MN pact would be detrimental to Umno.

“Umno will be divided as some of them are keen to join the Perikatan Nasional pact, and not the MN.

“Umno, PAS and Bersatu must learn the lessons from Pakatan Harapan. That pact collapsed because of disunity,” he said.

According to Bersatu sources, the problem now is seat negotiations among the three Malay parties. Some of the current Bersatu lawmakers were former Umno politicians who contested in traditionally Umno seats.

Party insiders said Umno wants back those seats, including Bersatu secretary-general Hamzah Zainuddin’s Larut seat, Mustapha Mohamad (Jeli), Abdul Latiff Ahmad (Mersing) and Mohd Rashid Hasnon (Batu Pahat).

“Those in Umno who oppose Bersatu have their own personal interests. Maybe they want to contest in certain seats which they might not be getting.

“For example, Batu Pahat. Mohd Puad Zarkashi will never get the seat because of Rashid,” the source said referring to the former Umno Batu Pahat MP.

Puad, in several social media postings, slamming Bersatu for behaving unfairly towards Umno.

Other Umno leaders are also critical, including Supreme Council member Tajuddin Abdul Rahman and former minister Nazri Abdul Aziz.

Bersatu youth exco member Muhammad Zikri Zulkifli said it’s up to the party leadership to decide on which pact to join.

“As a party member, I am open to any cooperation or none as well, as decided by the party leadership.”