Can new Islamist party beat back ‘DAP proxy’ label?
(TMI) – As the New Hope Movement (GHB) rises to challenge Umno and PAS for the Malay vote, it has become the target of a smear campaign to check its influence, especially among middle ground voters who are key in the next general election.
The race card is being played up against the Islamist movement and its leaders, and supporters are being labelled as DAP proxies – people whose real aim is to bring the DAP into federal power.
This is to tap into strong artificial fears especially among rural and working class Malays, that the community will lose out in terms of jobs, education and political weight if the DAP, whose top leaders are overwhelmingly non-Malay, comes to power.
GHB leaders are confident the movement has Malay support judging from the turnouts at its roadshows. – The Malaysian Insider file pic, August 21, 2015.So even before the GHB launches its political party, there is the question of whether its leaders can actually make a splash in the Malay heartlands which it plans to capture from Umno and its former comrades in PAS.
PAS election director Datuk Mustafa Ali said that GHB stands very little chance of threatening PAS support among Malays, even if it is led by ex-PAS leaders who are the party’s most recognisable figures and MPs.
“Before, when PAS worked with DAP, Umno labelled PAS as being the proxy of DAP, and that we would find it hard to get support. Now this new party will wear that label,” the former PAS secretary-general told The Malaysian Insider last month.
Umno-owned daily Utusan Malaysia has also played up the spectre of DAP being the number one beneficiary of its tie-up with GHB.
Both parties, along with PKR, are expected to join forces to create a new opposition coalition to replace the now-defunct Pakatan Rakyat.
Former Johor DAP leader Norman Fernandez believes that the perception may stick.
“DAP desperately needs a Malay-Muslim party to help sway the Malay votes. In the past, the relationship with PAS benefited DAP tremendously.
“If not for PAS, DAP leaders could not have set foot and spoken in conservative, Malay villages and heartland,” said Fernandez, who had quit the DAP over its relationship with PAS.
Old label
Leaders of Amanah, the soon-to-be-launched new party, are confident the proxy label will not cost it Malay support, saying this could be seen from the turnout at its roadshows.
GHB deputy coordinator Salahuddin Ayub (2nd from right) doesn’t believe the idea that many Malays would fall for the ‘DAP bogeyman’ trick against the new party. – The Malaysian Insider file pic, August 21, 2015.“At all the places we’ve visited, the majority of people who come out to see us are Malays, from all quarters. Young and old,” said Salahuddin Ayub, who is GHB deputy coordinator.
“If most of them are non-Malays then we would worry, but that has not been the case,” said the former PAS vice-president of GHB’s roadshows in the Malay heartlands of Johor, Perlis and Kelantan.
He also disputed the idea that many Malays would fall for the DAP bogeyman trick. This is because PAS itself got a lot of support from Malays on the west coast of the peninsula when it was labelled a DAP proxy during the PR days.
