Ex-PR partners DAP, PKR vie for spoils as PAS crumbles

As the former Pakatan Rakyat disintegrates, and PAS as the party that helped engineer its downfall paid the price, former component parties DAP and PKR are seeking to gain what they can from the chaos.

From a party that was once the darling of the federal opposition, and a leading member of Pakatan, Islamist party PAS has fallen a long way down back to its provincial and narrow-based political roots.

All for the want of hudud, the implementation of the Islamic penal code, it is putting before all else, including the political survival of the now defunct Pakatan and PAS’ own reputation, relevance and internal unity.

PAS played the Judas in breaking up Pakatan after years of rumoured Unity Government discussions with Umno, and various infractions of party discipline.

Opposition insiders have complained of instances when PAS acted unilaterally in defiance of shared consensus.

Out of the ashes of PAS’ impending demise though, rose Amanah like a phoenix ready to step in and fill the Islamist party’s shoes in a new opposition pact, taking with it what had once made the party more approachable, effective and mainstream.

Amanah, the new party soon to be morphed out of the defunct Workers’ Party, is made up of PAS progressives and allies who had left the Islamist party after being wiped out in party elections, in the face of strong arm tactics of the conservative ulama faction now in power.

Other than credibility in the eyes of non-Muslims which expanded the Islamist party’s support base, the progressives and professionals also left PAS bereft of more material means, like pledged buildings as well as NGOs and    institutions they helped set up.

This led to PAS bleeding not only grassroots leadership to Amanah, but also a sizable chunk of its infrastructure that has been described as akin to what happens in a divorce, whereby the divorcees now quibble over assets and properties.

But more so, the upheavals in PAS also saw it lose its MPs to the new party and to its former Pakatan allies.

And as an opposition insider observed, without the six seats it has lost to Amanah and PKR, PAS has lost its value to Umno and will no longer be entertained at the negotiation table by the Malay party, despite talk of political unification for the sake of Islam and the race.

With just about a dozen parliamentary seats now in hand, PAS no longer holds enough mass support to help BN attain two-thirds majority during parliamentary voting, should it be needed, either to amend the constitution or for a re-delineation exercise.

And now that it has managed to break up the former Pakatan Rakyat opposition pact, it has done its job well, and is no longer required by the Malay party. Indeed PAS is seen as the pariah of the Opposition and Umno may not want the baggage.

And being the pariah outside is perhaps how PAS best serves Umno now, as it can then break up the voting patterns in Malay majority areas by forcing three-cornered fights between the leading BN component, the Islamist party and any new opposition pact.

Thus, as the insider observed, is the sidelining of PAS complete, not only by those it has betrayed and cheated on, but also by those it had hoped to be in bed with, to no avail. PAS’ liaison with Umno has amounted to nothing but foreplay sans the act.

In a way the Islamist party’s situation can be summed up in an old Malay proverb, yang dikejar tak dapat, yang dikendong berciciran.

Literally translated, the proverb describes how chasing after an obsession, in PAS’ case the Islamic penal code hudud, may lose a person what they already have, in the end leaving them with nothing.

But not all of the assets that PAS is now shedding voluntarily or involuntarily, will go to Amanah, as others are also on the auction block, and former allies DAP and PKR are quick to capitalise and are snapping up what prizes they can get.

DAP, always keen to address its perceived Chinese-centric image, was quick to move in on the vacuum that PAS had left empty in the mindshare of urban and liberal Malays.

Thus it seeks to shore up its own weakness by snapping up many of the disenchanted Malays, both PAS members and former centrists alike, who are now being moulded into the socialist democrats’ shiny new Malay wing.

Though DAP has already been hard at work in enticing Malay support by recruiting “celebrities” like Syefura Othman and Dyana Sofya, it is now taking in PAS activists like Sheikh Omar Ali and once sympathisers, like poet A Samad Said.

The party is also making moves in Kelantan itself via its Harapan Kelantan campaign, which while officially is for recovery from floods that hit the east coast peninsular state last year, smacks of winning the hearts and minds of the grassroots in the PAS stronghold.

After all DAP is doing the same in the rural areas of Sabah and Sarawak, through Harapan Sabah and Harapan Sarawak respectively.

In any case the socialist democratic party is looking to capitalise on the disenchantment of middle ground Malays with PAS, to shore itself up as a viable alternative and help shed its Chinese-centric image.

PKR on the other hand went for bigger ticket items, going after high-profile PAS members like former Selangor MB Muhammad Mohd Taib, and even stealing the Islamist party’s Tumpat MP Kamaruddin Jaafar.

But unlike DAP, which saw a bigger opportunity in cannibalising PAS for its expansion into the Malay political sphere, PKR still somehow feels it needs the Islamist party to reinforce its electoral chances, probably because it lacks strong grassroots.

Thus PKR has been working closely with Amanah, to at least partially replace the support structure that PAS had once provided it with.

Indeed those in PKR are said to be working closely with the nascent new party, and are instrumental in holding the hand of the new party.

Thus PKR is technically scavenging a new ally out of the ashes of PAS. But the party is also hedging its bets with overtures to the Islamist party, and indeed is rapidly absorbing NGO and civil society activists, as well as BN-defectors into its ranks.

For better or worse, the destruction of Pakatan has actually given impetus to both DAP and PKR to grow and evolve into stronger entities individually, albeit at the expense of PAS.

Events have perhaps not only turned PAS into a pariah, it has also stripped it of its dignity and once vast political capital and resources.