In 1999, PAS secured 22,413 votes in Pendang compared with 22,542 votes in 2002; in Anak Bukit, it was 8,480 in 1999 and 8,298 in 2002.

What is disquieting is that PAS' extreme move to enact the Syariah Criminal Offences (Hudud and Qisas) Bill in Terengganu have not diminished its traditional support. The consolation is that it has not increased or garnered additional support either.

When Umno/Barisan Nasional narrowly won the Pendang parliamentary seat by 283 votes and reduced the gap in Anak Bukit by a marginal loss of 508 votes, it might be attributed to non-partisan, fence-sitting voters who but for the desire to block PAS, would otherwise have not come out to vote for Umno/BN.

As to whether Umno has recovered lost Malay cultural ground would depend on whether these new swing voters were predominantly Malay-Muslims or non-Malay/Muslims or a mix of both.

If the Pendang/Anak Bukit by-election results are a microcosmic test of the broader Umno/PAS struggle for political power at the national level, the BN is safe at least for the short run covering the next general election.

In 1999, at the height of the Anwar's debacle, the BN, though losing more than half of Malay votes, was still able to maintain a two-third majority in parliament with non-Malay support. If the BN could frame its manifesto for the imminent general election as a Malaysian struggle for the soul of Islam between the moderate face of it as espoused by Umno and the ultra-conservative and retrogressive face of it by PAS, then the BN would stand a chance of winning a yet greater majority than in 1999.

It will need to draw out the normally apathetic and non-partisan section of the citizenry (constituting moderate and modern Malays and non-Malays) to vote for it — not on the basis that they endorse BN's policies per se but just so to deny PAS the mandate to change the known way of life of the average Malaysian.

Over the longer run, the situation is however uncertain, and Umno's position is not assured. PAS' helmsperson Abdul Hadi Awang is not interested in a short run, which is why he dared to introduce hudud/qisas (Islamic penal code/traditional laws) even at this juncture over the vociferous protests of civil societies and other political parties.

He envisions a longer-term victory over the hearts and minds of Malay-Muslim Malaysians with acquiescence of non-Malays — an Islamic revolution of sorts like that in Iran except that it is — thus far — to be carried out without violence and within the legal and parliamentary process.

In this long battle for his version of Islam, PAS has several advantages over Umno/BN that it could capitalise, and they are:

  • Umno's two-decade long Islamisation programme has facilitated a resurgence of Islamic revival and religiosity that as a matter of tradition and philosophy, hold the ulama (Muslim scholars) at reverence and their words as revealed guidance of God, sacrosanct and above question.

  • Umno's mantra of economic development does not sell when it is discredited by allegations of cronyism and inequitable distribution of patronage and largesse.

  • The Malay rural heartland is untouched by the benefits of such development. Umno's national language policies have abrogated English, a cultural vehicle of secular, western and modernistic norms and values. The vacuum has been filled by religious education in mazrab (religious schools) that impart at kindergarten and primary school level, religious norms that promote receptivity to PAS' brand of political Islam.

    • Besides, educational grants and scholarships freely dispensed under Umno's affirmative policies do not bar locals from pursuing studies at tertiary institutions in the Middle East that inculcate radical values propagated by PAS.

  • Even at top government and civil service levels, and among the rank and file of Umno's hierarchy, people are not taught the way nor convinced of the necessity for ijtihad (consensus) — and how to abstract the timeless universal principles of Islam for adaptation to modernity and development along lines visualised by Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

    • The recent haphazard and self-defeating responses of the four Umno state assembly representatives in Terengganu who abstained rather than voted against the Hudud/Qisas Bill as well as the statement by religious adviser to the Prime Minister's Department that hudud was acceptable in principle but not its immediate implementation, are cases in point.

    If these people within the ruling establishment cannot articulate clearly the nature of objections against PAS' policies, how could they convince others down the line?

    Whereas Mahathir's call for a modern Islamic nation is saddled with ambivalence as regards how to reconcile the dialectics of the 14th century version of Islam with the imperatives of 20th and 21st century societies, PAS' blueprint of the Islamic state is, in contrast, absolute and clear in demanding submission. For simple rural folk, surrendering to PAS' clear message is emotionally less traumatic than figuring out the complexities of that of the PM.