The shakeup in PAS is going to shake up Malaysia

By MT Webmaster Last updated Jun 1, 2015

If Najib is still going to be the Prime Minister and with the shakeup in PAS he may need Ahmad Zahid Hamidi as his new deputy but I will not tell you why just yet. Let it happen first before we talk about it.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

We started with Reformasi in 1998 and then Barisan Alternatif in 1999. Then came Pakatan Rakyat in 2008 and ABU or ‘anything but Umno’ in 2009. What is it going to be next?

If we want to go back even further we had the Alliance Party in 1955 and Barisan Nasional in 1973. Umno then split into Umno Baru and Semangat 46 in 1988 followed by Angkatan Perpaduan Ummah and Gagasan Rakyat in 1990.

So what have we learned from all this? Well, I suppose we can always say that what we have learned is that Umno has been in power for 60 years from 1955 until 2015.

The other thing we have learned is that Umno cannot rule or form the government all on its own. It needs coalition partners to get into power and to stay in power.

Maybe the third thing we have learned would be that Umno has a tendency to break up, split, etc., from time to time — starting from 1951 when the first split occurred with the exit of its founder, Onn Jaafar, and the creation of the Pan-Malayan Islamic Party (PMIP) a few months later, now called PAS.

And probably the last thing we have learned is that political parties, Umno included but not exclusively, will always break up and split every few years but life will go on and new people will emerge to repair the damage and take the party forward.

Well, now, 2015, we are seeing another shakeup of the political landscape. Yes, 64 years after the first shake up followed by one shakeup after another over those 64 years we are seeing yet another of so many shakeups. And what is going to be the result of the latest and most current shakeup?

Umno is in turmoil. So is PAS and PKR. Coincidentally, all three are what we can call Malay-based parties even though PAS is an Islamic party and PKR supposedly a multi-racial party.

Pakatan Rakyat is also in turmoil while Barisan Nasional may not be visibly in turmoil — but the cauldron is boiling even though it may not have boiled over like Pakatan Rakyat.

Invariably, the shakeups and turmoil is going to change the political landscape somewhat. Life cannot go on as usual after this even though the turmoil has ended. In a shakeup there will be winners and losers. And in a political environment of winner takes all, the losers either have to fade away or find a new home to continue their struggle.

Yes, in a month or two we are going to see the aftermath of the latest shakeup. New alliances would have to be made and crossovers would have to happen. When the bomb goes off the landscape can never remain the same once the dust settles. It is like a Tsunami hitting your shores. The shoreline always changes each time that happens.

The ongoing contest in PAS to determine its new leadership is going to have wide repercussions on Malaysia’s political landscape. This is actually not just a contest for the PAS leadership but a battleground to determine the form and shape of Malay politics.

If the Anwarinas win and the ulama’ get ousted then Pakatan Rakyat is going to suffer because the Islamists are going to abandon the opposition coalition. So Pakatan Rakyat will end up with less Malay support but a PAS that will be subservient to the non-Malays.

On the other hand, if the ulama’ win and the Anwarinas get ousted then PAS may get kicked out of Pakatan Rakyat because DAP can never work with a PAS controlled by Islamists.

It looks like a weak PAS with Anwarinas in control may strengthen Pakatan Rakyat as far as non-Malay support is concerned but they would have to sacrifice a lot of Malay support.

A strong PAS with the ulama’ in control would spell the end of PAS in Pakatan Rakyat and it will have to contest the next general election on its own and probably in three-, four- or five-corner fights.

Either way Pakatan Rakyat will weaken somewhat. But the main question is, if the ulama’ get ousted and the Anwarinas take over will they remain in PAS or will they leave the party? And if they leave the party where will they go?

And if the Anwarinas get ousted instead and the ulama’ take over will they remain in PAS or will they leave the party? And if they leave the party where will they go?

The long and short of it is that PAS will not be the same any more in June 2015. One way or another massive changes are going to happen and these changes are going to affect both Pakatan Rakyat and Barisan Nasional.

The interesting thing is that in 2004 PKR began to adopt Umno’s method of campaigning using chai or menu for block voting. In other words, if you vote for a certain president then you also vote for his or her entire team. You do not vote for one person for list A and another from list B.

Now PAS has also adopted Umno’s chai or block-voting system. So, if you vote for Hadi then you also vote for all those on his team and if you vote for his challenger then you vote for all those on list B as well.

That is the Umno way which became the PKR way in 2004 and the DAP way not too long ago and is now the PAS way today. What else has PAS adopted from Umno, which PKR and DAP also adopted from Umno?

Well, for one they are using fitnah and name-calling to run down their opponents. Even Mat Sabu, the most famous name-caller in PAS, has expressed his worry regarding the kafir-mengkafir issue.

Kafir-mengkafir is the political strategy of labelling fellow-Muslims who do not share your political ideology as infidels or kafir. Anyone who disagrees with you has to be run down and called all sorts of names such as traitor, running dog, Trojan horse, turncoat, prostitute, infidel, cocksucker, and whatnot.

Umno does it. DAP does it. PKR does it. And now PAS does it as well. DAP is even better at this game because they can add racist, ethnic cleansing, discrimination, etc., to the list of names they call you.

Anyway, I remember back in 2010 when I said something that made Haris Ibrahim a.k.a. Sam very angry with me. He openly condemned me for saying that and what I said was that we cannot support the ABU or ‘anything but Umno’ struggle. It has to be more than that.

I explained that ABU alone is not enough because we are not fighting to get rid of Umno but to get rid of the Umno culture. Now that Umno culture has infected not only PKR and DAP but PAS as well. So we get rid of Umno and replace it with a clone of Umno.

No, that is not my struggle. It may be your struggle but then you can go on and do it without me. I want no part of that struggle.

A case in point is the way Lim Kit Siang keeps whacking Abdul Hadi Awang for kononnya trying to form a Unity Government with Umno when it was Anwar Ibrahim who arranged the meeting in London while Hadi refused to attend the meeting even though he happened to be in London at that time.

Then Anwar confirms the meeting but denies that the purpose was to form a Unity Government. He said it was only to reach a National Consensus, whatever that is supposed to mean.

And then Kit Siang proposes a Save Malaysia coalition so that Pakatan Rakyat and Barisan Nasional can unite to prevent Malaysia from becoming Islamised and from being turned into an Islamic State.

So, Anwar holds talks for a National Consensus while Kit Siang proposes a Save Malaysia coalition and, while Hadi refuses to have anything to do with this, he is accused of selling out Pakatan Rakyat by wanting to form a Unity Government with Umno.

That is what I mean by Umno culture which Pakatan Rakyat has now adopted and which we must oppose. So it should not be ‘anything but Umno’. It should be ‘anything but Umno tricks and lies’ that have now become Pakatan Rakyat’s tricks and lies.

Yes, the ulama’ must win next month and DAP must insist that PAS be kicked out of Pakatan Rakyat. Then we will see what happens post-June 2015. Meanwhile let us see post-June 2015 whether Najib Tun Razak is still the Prime Minister and who his new Deputy Prime Minister is going to be.

Raja Petra Kamarudin RPK