Najib’s olive branch to PAS is a bold move
Azman Ujang, Bernama
Umno president Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak publicly extended the party’s olive branch to PAS at the party’s general assembly last month in an unprecedented gesture.
It’s seen by many as a bold move and an act of statesmanship for the prime minister to rekindle the good old days when under his late father, then prime minister Tun Abdul Razak, PAS was part of the “unity government” created after Tun Razak mooted the formation of the Barisan Nasional (BN).
Umno walks the talk on Malay or Muslim unity. The ball is now in the court of PAS.
The BN came about in the aftermath of May 13, 1969 race riots and in the 1974 general election that followed, Umno and PAS in a historic development contested the polls under the BN banner.
But the unity government clicked and worked for only about three years when due to some political turmoil in the PAS stronghold state of Kelantan, which the party blamed it on the Federal government, PAS quit the BN.
It’s been almost 40 years now that these two parties representing the Malays have been at loggerheads and which has been a major source of Malay political disunity in a country where they are the majority race.
Fast forward, in his latest blog posting, Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak said on this score, Najib shares the same dreams and aspirations of his father.
“It may be time for all Malaysians to work together to achieve national unity and to meet the aspiration of building a better Malaysia for the present and future generations,” said Salleh, arguing that all parties must unite and focus their efforts on nation-building, given the reality that the coming years would be a very critical period for the world and Malaysia.
Salleh said everyone must focus on how the economy could be strengthened and that race-religion politics, which at times tends to tear the people apart, must be reduced, if not eliminated altogether.
Sound wisdom, indeed from this Sabahan leader, because it’s very clear for everyone to see that it does not make sense whatsoever that unity which the Malays in the street have been dreaming for long is denied them due to the undoing of politicians.
Leaders of both sides, both at home and international forums, have been talking about the unity of the Ummah or universal Muslims, but PAS leaders’ reaction to the olive branch offered by Najib so far has been very un-encouraging to say the least.
It’s an open secret that a major stumbling block in efforts towards the Umno-PAS rapprochement in the past had been PAS spiritual leader Datuk Seri Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, better known as Tuan Guru.
He had consistently rejected such a move in what could be interpreted as his “once bitten twice shy” stance given what he perceived as the “shabby” treatment PAS experienced during the period it was in the BN coalition.
That period saw a change of the Malaysian leadership when Tun Razak died almost exactly 40 years ago and was succeeded by Tun Hussein Onn, who was at the helm when PAS left the BN and never to return till now.
Najib at the recent Umno general assembly said: “With an open heart and a clear conscience, we extend the hands of friendship, we extend the ties of fraternity to build a Malaysia on such ideals.”
The prime minister once again repeated this offer a few days later when he shared the same stage with PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang at an event organised by the Alumni of Egypt’s Al-Azhar university, the world’s oldest.
Najib to his credit even visited Abdul Hadi when the latter was receiving treatment at a hospital in Istanbul, Turkey.
Never before has a chemistry been this positive between Umno and PAS leaders as under Najib and Hadi and hopes were raised for the two parties which have not been able to see eye-to-eye for nearly 40 years to finally bury the hatchet.
But call it big ego among leaders within PAS’ Syura Council, its highest policy-making body, which at a meeting last week decided not to have any cooperation with Umno.
“At our meeting, the council decided to maintain our old position, which is not to rejoin the BN or cooperate with Umno,” PAS deputy president Datuk Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man said.
It’s the council’s rationale that PAS cannot be on the same wave-length as Umno because “it involves issues relating to committing sins and being Syariah-compliant’, was how Tuan Ibrahim explained it.
On his part, Abdul Hadi himself said Umno should “return to and practise the Islamic way of life in all aspects of its struggle, be it politics, social or economy, before we can think of cooperation”.
Several Umno Supreme Council leaders have since called for both parties to let bygones be bygones and for this to happen, it’s in everybody’s interest that big-headedness and ego within the PAS Syura Council be replaced with the larger agenda of the nation for the common good of all.
Malay political unity at the end of the day is paramount and priceless and the earlier PAS comes to term with this, the better is the future for all Malaysians.
