COMMENT On Thursday, PAS spiritual leader Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat passed away. His passing came less than a year since DAP national chairperson Karpal Singh’s passing from a tragic car accident in Perak in April 2014.

Karpal and Nik Aziz were two visionary leaders whose strong ideologies shook those in power from BN and amassed huge followings for both DAP and PAS respectively. The two men did not see eye-to-eye of course, when it came to DAP’s secular state ambitions and PAS’ Islamic state ambitions.

Nevertheless, they retained great respect for each other’s persistence, and they had more in common than they would have cared to admit. Then in 2008, one man got the two men to meet eye-to-eye and finally, they agreed to focus on their commonalities rather than differences.