PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang did not call the MPs who signed the confidence and supply agreement (CSA) ‘Dajjal’, a PAS MP said on Nov 4, as the remark continued to draw responses across the political divide.
Pasir Mas MP Ahmad Fadhli Shaari said Hadi’s statement had been misunderstood. Hadi was criticising the approach taken under the CSA, in which MPs must pledge support for the government before they receive constituency allocations, he said. As those allocations come from public funds, they should not be tied to political support, he added, calling such conditions unacceptable.
Fadhli said Hulu Langat MP Sany Hamzan had misread Hadi’s remarks during an earlier Dewan Rakyat debate. He also cited the economy ministry’s approval of seven development projects in Kelantan, including one in his constituency, as an example of fair distribution.
Debating Budget 2027 in the Dewan Rakyat, Langkawi MP Mohd Suhaimi Abdullah, one of the six Bersatu MPs who signed the agreement, said the comparison was grave and that labelling opposition MPs in this way was harmful to national unity.
Former Umno supreme council member Puad Zarkashi asked in a Facebook post whether Hadi’s reasoning would make Umno a ‘lesser Dajjal’, since the party is part of the unity government that signed the CSA. He urged Umno’s ulama council to state its position and questioned the silence of the party’s religious figures, naming Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki and Khairuddin Aman Razali. Law and Institutional Reform Minister Azalina Othman Said said Hadi could have voiced his disagreement without resorting to such extreme language.
In a statement on Nov 3, Hadi said the CSA was ‘Dajjal-like’ because power was being used to pressure others into keeping the government in office rather than held as a trust for the good of all. In Islamic belief, the Dajjal is a great deceiver whose appearance is one of the major signs of the approaching Day of Judgment.
The CSA was signed on Oct 29 by six Bersatu MPs led by party president Muhyiddin Yassin, Muda’s Muar MP Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman and six independent MPs. The signatories agreed to support Budget 2027 in return for constituency development allocations on par with those of government MPs, while the government committed to limiting the prime minister’s tenure and separating the roles of the attorney-general and public prosecutor before the end of the parliamentary term.