Positive messages from the PAS assembly
Where political strategies are concerned, both PKR and DAP need PAS to help check Umno in Malay rural areas. Having said that, the relationship between these three countries could present delicate changes in the future.
Lim Sue Goan, Sin Chew Daily
The PAS assembly has reaffirmed the party’s stand to stay in Pakatan Rakyat, which is a good thing for democratic politics, especially the country’s two-party system.
With the GE13 results not as good as anticipated and with some Malay votes drifting back to Umno, there have been voice within PAS to ‘review the party’s status within Pakatan Rakyat.” Penang PAS even threatened to opt out of the state government out of frustration of being marginalized. With such voices now hushed after the party elections, it has now become confirmed that PAS will remain to work along with its allies in Pakatan Rakyat.
Some of the more conservative members within the party have tried to apply pressure on the party leadership for losing some of the Malay votes because the party has given in to the democratic objectives of Pakatan Rakyat, hence giving up its once aggressive religious approach.
If PAS were to quit Pakatan, BN will easily defeat the individual opposition parties. For instance after the 1990 general elections, DAP withdrew from the alternative front because PAS had insisted to establish an Islamic state. This resulted in the subsequent collapse of the alternative front, allowing BN to easily secure big wins in the coming general elections.
PAS is well aware of the price to pay if it were to allow history to repeat itself.
The two developments in PAS assembly will decide its future directions: the more open-minded Erdogans advocating continued cooperation with Pakatan allies won in the party elections. Mat Sabu successfully defeated his challenger Mohd Amar Nik Abdullah as the party’s deputy president. In addition, the Erdogans also clinched two of the three vice president seats and took control of the central committee, the Youth and Wanita wings.
The incumbent Youth vice chairman Raja Ahmad,. who was aggressively hitting out at Karpal Singh in the run-up to the party elections, also failed in his bid for deputy chairmanship.
During his “Rahmat Untuk Semua” opening presidential address, party president Hadi Awang made it very clear that the party would continue to be an active ally within Pakatan Rakyat, not just a passenger, sending a very clear message to all party members.
It is believed that PAS has seen clearly what it will lose if it were to opt out of Pakatan. While going the more aggressive religious way could bring more Muslim voters to its fold, the party will also stand to lose the support of non-Muslim voters, confining the party’s influences only on the east coast and giving it no chance of forming the central government at all.
Only if it opts to stay in Pakatan will PAS have an opportunity to take the helm of federal government to fulfill the goals of its political struggles. If the government’s subsidy rationalization program and GST implementation eventually brings about inflation and economic recession, then Pakatan will have good chances of taking the federal administration come the next GE.
PAS remaining in Pakatan is never a good thing for Umno, although it is absolutely a good thing for democratic politics. Other than checking the advances of a powerful Umno, it will also ensure that Umno’s racist policies will not go too far.
Owing to a split of Malay votes, Umno cannot afford to overlook non-Malay votes. In the recent Sungai Limau by-election in Kedah, Umno has counted on the minority Chinese votes there to wrestle the seat from PAS.
From the PAS assembly we could see that the party has been very ambitious to take over the status of Umno. To the party, it is Umno which has prevented the implementation of hudud laws, not DAP, because the power is now in the hands of Umno.
