COMMENT Many in Pakatan Rakyat heaved a huge sigh of relief that it was Nik Aziz Nik Mat who was present at a meeting with the king at Istana Terengganu in Kuala Lumpur on Dec 24.

There were other notables from PAS who were present and a couple of Umno bigwigs, but in the end the key man was Nik Aziz.

And Pakatan - at least those quarters that reckon as good their chances of making Putrajaya at the fast approaching general election - must be grateful that it was he who was present.    

Details about the meeting began to filter out the very next day, such that the Kelantan menteri besar was compelled to issue a statement a few days ago that he would shortly say something about it.

NONE In the event, at a press conference in Kota Bharu yesterday, the ageing spiritual leader of PAS resorted to the staunch discretion that necessarily girds meetings between politicians and royalty.

Nik Aziz said it would be “unethical” to reveal what was discussed at the meeting in Istana Terengganu.

Fair enough. But sources said that the subject of discussion would come up at PAS’ central working committee meeting in Kuala Lumpur this Sunday.

If it does come up, then it was unlikely that the subject was whether climate change had something to do with the floods in Kelantan, the state where Nik Aziz has been chief minister for 20 years.

Intriguing assemblage of personalities

This much is now quite certain about the meeting. It was arranged by former prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

The Kelantan leader went expecting to meet the king but was surprised to find that there was not only Prime Minister Najib Razak and his deputy, Muhyiddin Yassin, present but also PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang and his deputy, Nasharuddin Mat Isa.

This was a rather intriguing assemblage of personalities and the discussion among the attendees went on for a bit.

NONE Because the King was present and Nik Aziz ( right ) himself has pronounced as “unethical” any disclosure of what transpired, it would be unseemly speculate.

Suffice to say the party elections of PAS, scheduled for June, are not going to be postponed, as several BN component parties have done for their elective assemblies this year, and some quarters in PAS would want to for theirs.

Nik Aziz is opposed to a postponement for reasons that may have to do with a desire to see some leaders of his party put out to pasture.

Still, there is the question of the party’s CWC meeting on Sunday, which is expected to be lively for reason of what transpired at the meeting at Istana Terengganu in KL on Dec 24.

“May you live in interesting times,” goes the famously inscrutable Chinese saying, which some pundits say is tailor-made for Malaysian politics.

Wary standoff between two factions

You can wager quite a bit on the theory that between now and Sunday’s meeting, the factions in PAS favouring unity talks and that flatly opposed will each trim their sails to suit what they see as the prevailing winds, because each is not confident that it can carry the house.

However, it is doubted that this wary standoff is sustainable any longer, especially with a by-election in Johor in which non-Muslims constitute 50 percent of the electorate, and a general election bruited to be held soon.    

No longer can each side to the PAS divide pretend that it has not arrived at an irresolvable pass: that they can continue to let the question of whether to work with Umno or to be the party that transcends it in the opposition coalition, Pakatan, rattle about disturbingly in its attic like cargo come loose in the hold of a freighter.

pakatan leaders pc in pakatan 2nd convention 191210 hadi Barely three weeks ago, PAS president Hadi ( left ) yet again emphasised the universal ideals of Islam at the second Pakatan convention in Kepala Batas, just as he did at the inaugural meeting in Shah Alam exactly a year prior.

One had to listen to his tone of earnest imploration, particularly at its airing in Shah Alam, that Malaysians should not form an opinion of what Islamic rule is all about from Umno’s example of governance.

On that occasion, Hadi cited examples from early Islamic history that were genuinely impressive in their depiction of a new dispensation for mankind ushered in by the revelations given to a hitherto obscure shepherd who went on to become what is regarded as a successful example of a theocrat-king, or more accurately, theocrat-caliph, to distinguish it from the philosopher-king of Plato’s formulation.         

If one was moved by the sincerity of Hadi’s utterances at Shah Alam and by its reiteration at Kepala Batas a year later, one must wonder at its integrity now when it’s quite clear that Hadi, perhaps not to the extent of his deputy Nasharuddin, is in favour of a modus vivendi between PAS and Umno.

Only Nik Aziz appears bold enough to stand firmly athwart such an accommodation, believing as he does that Umno is too far gone in the tooth to be redeemable.

Impressive as this physically frail but spiritually redoubtable man is, his example furnishes little grounds to dispense with the notion that politics, even at its least deplorable, is practice to deceive.

Or to doubt the wisdom of the philosopher Blaise Pascal’s dictum that man is “neither angel nor beast, and the unfortunate thing is that he who acts the angel, acts the beast.”

 

TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for close on four decades. He likes the occupation because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them. It is the ideal profession for a temperament that finds power fascinating and its exercise abhorrent.