COMMENT Selangor PAS commissioner Iskandar Samad made a thought-provoking comment last week. He said: “Selangor is very important for PAS. It shows that PAS is not an East Coast or Malay Belt party, but a national party.”
As we look forward, the question of what PAS is, and what it is becoming could be the subject of fruitful inquiry.
I think in many ways, the direction of PAS is being shaped largely by president Abdul Hadi Awang, and his team that was elected in a landslide victory in the last PAS elections.
Hadi gets a lot of flak, some of it deserved, some of it less so. I’m certainly no expert on the man, but perhaps we can speculate on his mentality and vision, and how it affects the rest of Malaysia.
PAS now committed
Opposition unity tends to be relatively stronger before general elections, and considerably weaker after general elections.
There being less reason to band together without looming elections, Malaysian opposition parties tend to retreat and adopt stances that pander more to their hardcore bases.
I think we can see this in both DAP and PAS post-GE13, arguably starting with the former.
Around the time of the backfiring Kajang Move, Lim Guan Eng started pushing PAS further and further away, practically ensuring the electoral defeat of the more progressive leaders in PAS, which led to the much more DAP friendly, MCA-like splinter party, Amanah.
PAS is a bigger, older and generally slower moving party, so it took them a bit longer to fully realise the split from the old Pakatan Rakyat mentality, but we are seeing that inclination come into full force now, as Hadi declares unequivocally (and unwisely) that PAS will not work with any allies of DAP or Amanah.
A loss of hope
The reason Pakatan Rakyat split up is because leaders like Guan Eng, and now Hadi, either lost faith in the vision they shared leading up to GE13, or were simply no longer willing to work hard for it.
Like a marriage, no union will survive unless its members are really committed to fight for it.
Essentially, the thinking in both parties is to sacrifice national goals for smaller local ones.
Hadi and Guan Eng are similar in one key aspect - deep down, they feel that the current existing players in the opposition have little to no hope of winning federal elections.
If this is so, then the ‘smart’ political approach is to concentrate on battles that they can win.
In Guan Eng’s case, this generally means securing DAP’s fiefdom of Penang, along with all its considerable resources, at whatever cost.
Hadi’s response to the same reality is a bit more colourful.
What is Hadi’s endgame?
I think that while many disagree with Hadi’s politics and his interpretation of religion, fewer tend to doubt his religious commitment - that is, relatively few doubt that he does what he does out of true religious conviction.
PAS is a rather unique party in that more so than any other party in Malaysia, they have a goal and a frame of reference that is not entirely political in nature.
Many or most people in PAS see political power as a vehicle, rather than an end onto itself.
While this is also true of the more principled people in other political parties, in the case of PAS, the end goal is one that supersedes all other goals. After all, what is more important than God or the afterlife?
So, I think we can interpret Hadi’s moves as motivated by a desire to advance his ideas of Islamic governance in Malaysia, however small a step at a time.
A man like Hadi believes that this is literally what he was put on earth to do, and to fail would be an affront to God.
Not being particularly young, perhaps Hadi feels the clock is ticking on his mission to leave a tangible legacy behind.
Is it important to PAS to be nationally relevant?
Passing Act 355 would certainly achieve these goals. Essentially, perhaps Hadi wants to see at least one solid step forward towards the PAS vision before he leaves.
What is more relevant to the rest of us is what Hadi is willing to sacrifice in order to do so.
Iskandar’s comment is interesting and pertinent I think. In GE12 and GE13, PAS showed itself to be a nationally relevant party, especially by participating meaningfully in the Selangor government, one of the most diverse, populous and prosperous states in the nation.
For most of its history, PAS had only been truly been politically relevant in what Iskandar called the Malay Belt.
In that reality, it was hard for PAS to ever be more than a second or third rate player at the national level.
Whatever he may tell his party members, I think Hadi understands this. I also think however, that being nationally relevant has moved down considerably in Hadi’s list of priorities.
I think the way he weighs said priorities, advancing what he views as Islamic governance is more important than being a big player at the federal and/or West Coast level.
I wouldn’t say Hadi is in any hurry to lose PAS’ influence in the Selangor government, but rather that he has conceded that such a loss is an acceptable risk. Like DAP in Penang, PAS is also looking to secure its base, even if it has to be at the expanse of PAS’ influence in the West Coast.