PAS presents a turning tide BN desperately seeking
A grave mistake is all it takes for the Pakatan Rakyat coalition to crumble. Recently concluded PAS Muktamar has given BN a glimpse of hope to turn the political tide back to their side.
By Timmy Say
With Nasharudin Mat Isa re-elected as PAS Deputy President, BN/UMNO certainly senses that PAS has opened up an opportunity to drive non-Muslim support away from PAS.
Besides standing by his President’s controversial idea of unity government and continued talk with UMNO, Nasharudin has overstepped his boundary by saying that “Nik Aziz is not PAS.” Ever since PAS managed to snatch away Kelantan from BN, Nik Aziz name is synonymically mentioned together with PAS.
Just because his preferred candidates were not selected at PAS Muktamar, it doesn’t mean that one can disassociate Nik Aziz name from PAS.
Instead of showing disrespect to his party spiritual leader, Nasharuddin is supposed to seek his guidance on how to manage people’s perception of PAS and to be the leader of the people.
In PAS, there is no better leader to learn from besides Nik Aziz. His President, Abdul Hadi Awang, in my view, failed miserably in this compartment compared to Nik Aziz.
Why? Remember how Abdul Hadi squandered away Terengganu after having just 1-term in power while Nik Aziz managed to retain Kelantan even when BN was enjoying extreme popularity in 2003 after the resignation of Tun Dr Mahathir as PM.
In 2008, when BN was at its weakest, Abdul Hadi still could not wrestle Terengganu back while Pakatan Rakyat managed to wrestle away an extra 4 states besides Kelantan from BN.
Has Nasharudin ever wondered why Terengganu voters continually reject PAS after 4 years living under Hadi while Kelantan voters continually support Nik Aziz’s administration over 20 years?
This track record of Nik Aziz speaks for itself on why PAS needs to listen to him for further progress in the future instead of Hadi Awang who certainly is not made of MB or PM material.
PAS certainly needs to remind itself that BN is ever ready to try and snatch back the support of the non-Muslims. BN is just waiting for a mistake to paint PAS as ultra conservative and anti-liberal to shoo away the support of non-Muslims from PAS just like the old days.
The continuing of unity government talk by Hadi and Nasharudin will bring discomfort and trouble for the Pakatan coalition. Besides that, some controversial calls like banning Sisters In Islam for being too liberal certainly has cast a lot of doubts on the fence-sitters whether PAS is really the real deal to replace UMNO.
Instead of using Muktamar as an opportunity to shut down all the doubts of the voters in recognizing PAS as a viable choice of replacing UMNO, Nasharudin and Hadi just did the opposite. PAS was that near to break the barrier of being labelled conservative and extreme anti-liberalism, but too bad power and greed wins over the day.
BN is set to take advantage on this open opportunity by Nasharudin to turn the tide against Pakatan Rakyat. With PAS’s top two continuing to shoot their own feet, there’s a fair chance that BN might succeed just before the next general election.
PAS without listening to Nik Aziz is as good as PAS Terengganu, who can never wrestle back Terengganu even when BN is crippled. Congratulations PAS!
