Opposing political parties all over the world have held discussions for the sake of national reconciliation, so there is no reason why Umno and PAS should not do the same, a political scientist said.

NONEEven being double-crossed by Umno before should not be a reason to accept offers for dialogue with an open heart, UKM associate professor Mohammad Agus Yusof (right) asserted.

"It's true that Umno-PAS relations have a dark history. It is also true that PAS does not want to fall into the same hole as it did in 1974 where it came out of cooperation with Umno wounded.

"Umno's intentions of wanting to only have dialogues with PAS and not with other Malay leaders in PKR or Malay-Muslim NGOs like Abim, Isma and Ikram can also be questioned.

"For me, let that be. Start the dialogues first. PAS should not forever be doubtful and skeptical of Umno. Have an open heart first. This is a way to move forward," he said in a Facebook posting.

Extraordinary animosity

He said that failure to hold a dialogue makes Malaysian politicians even worse than Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, who had an "extraordinary animosity" against his opponent Morgan Tsvangirai.

"Even then, eventually, on Feb 11, 2009, they were together in a government with Mugabe as president and Tsvangirai as prime minister.

"Even though the cooperation collapsed in three years, but at least they were together due to negotiations and discussions. Don't we want something like this?"

He said there was political cooperation across the divide in other countries too, like Vietnam, Yemen and Germany.

"These countries were not only divided into two nations, but also went to war with each other due to differing ideologies.

"But they were ready to have dialogues, resulting in unification. Vietnam was united on Jul 2, 1976, Yemen on May 22, 1990 and Germany on Oct 3, 1990.

"They may have crawled towards unification but they remained together as independent nations.

"For example, Vietnam after introducing the Doi Moi ('socialist-oriented market economy') policy in 1986 had taken small steps to finally leave our country behind in terms of foreign investment and tourism," he said.

Umno at the general assembly last week had expressed willingness to have dialogues with PAS, but PAS said it only wanted to talk about cooperation to push through the hudud law.

Umno's invitation for talks was also deemed by PKR as disingenuous, as Umno had also ended the assembly by threatening action against an unnamed PAS leader who they claimed is a follower of Shiite teachings.