The party launched the policy at its general assembly in June, citing the ruling coalition’s failure to help poor Bumiputeras, who make up nearly three-quarters of the poorest 40 per cent of Malaysian households that live on RM1,500 per month or less.
PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang wrote in party organ Harakah today that Umno, its rival for the majority Malay vote, practises a secular welfare state that has resulted in “vice and crime that it cannot address.”
“The Umno-led BN welfare state is a bribe for elections. This is because its leadership is stricken by the cancer of corruption in party polls at all levels and results in bribery during elections,” the Marang MP said.
Hadi, who has led the Islamic party for the past decade, said PAS has always held on firmly to Islamic principles and “is committed and sincere to its promises to everyone.”
Instead, he implied that it is other political parties which have shifted their positions over time.
“PAS has not deviated from its policies, concepts and objectives since being part of BN in the early 1970s and then being ejected by BN, and with Barisan Alternatif in 1999 until DAP left and now rejoined (the opposition coalition),” he said.
Datuk Seri Najib Razak had earlier this month distanced himself from a welfare state policy, stating that all welfare states end up facing “very serious economic problems”.
The prime minister said his administration strived towards providing a social safety net instead to ensure wealth is fairly distributed as “all countries that practise a welfare state end up facing very serious economic problems.”
But last June, BN leaders rushed to mock PAS for dropping its commitment to an Islamic state and also insisted the government had already introduced a welfare state.
“The government has always struggled towards achieving a welfare state. Therefore I find it strange and peculiar that they want to establish a welfare state.
“What they claim as new, we have had for a long time. There is no need for them to take the model of the current government,” Umno president Najib had said at a forum last June.
But PAS has insisted it did not propose a welfare state (negara kebajikan) but a benevolent state (negara berkebajikan) which also focuses on good governance and social justice that form part of the foundation of an Islamic state.
