COMMENT These days the word gets steadily more discouraging about PAS.

Barely had the news that their technical committee on hudud implementation in Kelantan has found a way out of the flap over the medical profession’s objections to doctor-assisted amputations, then we are told that the bit about the use of guillotines as substitute was premature speculation.

Hardly had the hubbub over the possible introduction of a measure redolent of revolutionary France died down, then we hear of the abject acquiescence of their four Selangor executive council members to former menteri besar Khalid Ibrahim’s exorbitant severance pay to his aides on his leaving office.

Public unease over these capers comes amidst seeming nonchalance of the party president Abdul Hadi Awang ( left ) on the issue of his absenteeism at Pakatan Rakyat presidential council meetings, at which major decisions were taken to which the PAS chief subsequently felt not duty-bound to support.

The theory is that Hadi’s abstention gave him an after-the-fact override, despite his underlings having endorsed the decision taken in the chief’s absence.

This is an unsustainable prerogative that smacks of the divine right of rule of kings. Governance by dint of Pakatan’s egalitarian instincts cannot support this sort of thing.      

Hadi explained he had been absent because he was indisposed.

On whether he would be present at future meetings, his replies put one in mind of the station master who, upon being asked when the train would arrive, said, “That depends.” On what does it depend? This epitome of ambiguity replied, “That also depends.”

Fortunately, Pakatan Rakyat’s chances of victory at the next general election (GE14) are not dependent on factors of comparable ambiguity.

Admittedly, it’s too early to speculate whether Pakatan Rakyat can win the next general election, though a host of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s detractors within Umno - mainly Dr Mahathir Mohamed and his claque - are certain that the Umno president would lose GE14 unless he changes tack.

It’s unclear what these changes should be and what they would entail.

From the Pakatan perspective, there is little dispute as to what needs to happen for the opposition coalition to triumph.

Barnstorming performance

New Selangor Menteri Besar Azmin Ali would have not just to sustain his presently stellar performance as state CEO, he has to further embellish it.

A barnstorming performance as MB which would require that he keeps a surplus of revenue over expenditure, provides affordable housing to the middle class, and is on top of the plethora of relatively minor irritations that could rear up to beset a state CEO, would see him, PKR and, by extension, Pakatan nicely placed when GE14 comes around.

In Penang, the continued success of Lim Guan Eng’s stewardship, a reduction of recently-evident imperiousness in his conduct - more importantly, the disclosure he will not be a three-term chief minister out of deference to the wisdom of term-limits - would raise the standard of Pakatan governance to unbeatable heights.

Of course, these realisable merits would add up to not very much  should PAS play the spoiler’s role - by attempting to square the circle - their insistence that they can introduce hudud in Kelantan without tampering with the federal constitution.

It’s pointless trying to dissuade the conservative component of this Islamist party from their self-imposed mission of implementing hudud in Kelantan - the effort would be as fruitless as an argumentative voice would be on the deaf.

Alas, a conservatives-driven PAS would have to discover on its own the futility of its quest for a way of governance that prevails in parts of the Islamic world, to no evident enthusiasm of their subjects.

No matter, for to the ideologically-besotted, abstractions are preferable to reality.

The above has made no mention of the impact of the legal problems of Pakatan’s putative leader, Anwar Ibrahim ( left ).

He will become a cause celebre if he is jailed for sodomy, the case against him having been, in its appellate trials, to have been manifestly weak.

Freed, he will have to give new voice to familiar grouses. This would be a more challenging task than what would accrue to him from a jailhouse residence.

TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for more than four decades. A sobering discovery has been that those who protest the loudest tend to replicate the faults they revile in others.