The feud between the two political Goliaths, Umno and PAS, is the stuff of legends, with repercussions even in the hereafter.

                                                                                                                       

Raging for decades, it has divided families, with tales from the rural Malay heartlands claiming some even erected walls in their houses to separate supporters of the two parties.

 

Peppering the battlefield with a divine flavour, the late PAS spiritual leader Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat warned that voting Umno was tantamount to reserving a spot in hell.

 

But talk of reconciliation made the rounds again after Nik Aziz passed on and president Abdul Hadi Awang pressed ahead with his hudud agenda, saying he was willing to work with Umno to achieve his theocratic goal.

 

After all, Hadi is often described as a prime mover of the unity government agenda and Kelantan Umno rallied behind him on hudud.

 

Now, a former senior BN leader believes that Umno and PAS will join hands in a marriage of convenience, come the next general election.

 

“Regardless of what the critics or analysts might say, trust me, this is a politically feasible idea - it is cooperating for the sake of winning the elections,” the leader told Malaysiakini , speaking on condition of anonymity.

 

In the past, the former minister said, if someone had predicted that DAP and PAS would be partners, that person would have been accused of suffering from mental disorder.

 

He said PAS is Umno’s biggest rival and if the two can make peace, then it would bolster their chances, given the current political climate where both parties are battered by internal problems.

 

Umno, he noted, has 88 Parliament seats, whereas PAS has 21 and a partnership would ensure a close to complete haul of Malay-majority seats.

 

As for the opposition, he claimed PKR is nothing without the PAS electoral machinery.

                                   

“PKR is still riding on the wave of discontent against the BN. After elections, their representatives go missing, whereas PAS has a strong local presence in the constituencies,” he said.

 

Little resistance

 

As for BN component parties objecting to such an alliance, the former BN leader laughed it off, saying these parties have been reduced to nothing more than a ceremonial presence.

 

“They can make noise, but who cares? Eventually, they will submit,” he added.

Pointed out the move would also not resonate well with component parties across the South China Sea, he said BN operated along the lines of political patronage.

 

“As far as BN is concerned, Umno calls the shots... These politicians in Sabah and Sarawak are nothing without government projects,” he stressed.

 

The former minister also claimed that PAS may shelve its hudud plan as a compromise.

 

However, a political analyst described the Umno-PAS alliance as a long shot. Nevertheless, he conceded that politics is the art of the impossible.

 

He pointed out the hudud issue has torn the opposition apart and caused an upheaval in PAS, which saw the progressive faction wiped out in last month’s party polls.

 

“To backtrack on hudud now would backfire and the ulama faction, which supported Hadi in the cleansing of the progressives, would be disappointed.

 

“History has also shown that a PAS and Umno alliance can be chaotic. The bitterness from the last union still lingers,” the analyst added.

 

Therefore, he predicted that PAS would split if such a plan is put in motion because the bad blood between the two rivals has been flowing for decades.