COMMENT Now that Umno president Najib Abdul Razak has just about succeeded in quelling rebellion within Umno and got the party around him, he seems to be moving to the next stage in his quest for political survival.

The news he will meet PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang next week at a gathering of alumni of Al Azhar university is indicative of the next step in his plan of survival.

After marginalising actual and potential critics in his own party, Najib is moving to divide the opposition by coaxing PAS into collaborative arrangements that will make the Islamist party’s presence in the opposition problematic to those among them who think that PAS can be relied on as a partner in an electoral pact.

Already, Hadi has made Najib’s effort at beguiling PAS easier by issuing a directive to subordinate leaders barring comment on the overture that the Umno chief made in his presidential address to the party’s general assembly.

But before that directive could take effect, at least two PAS leaders pooh-poohed Najib’s olive branch to Umno’s long-time rivals for the Malay vote.

First, Selangor PAS executive councillor Iskandar Abdul Samad and then their MP for Pokok Sena, Mahfuz Omar, cast aspersions on Najib’s offer.

The one said the offer was duplicitous in that it flew in the face of Umno’s strong-arm methods against PAS members in a variety of ways, while the other described it as an act of desperation by a party that was losing support and that needed PAS as hedge against drowning.

Without doubt, more of these cavils at Najib’s offer would have been expressed by other PAS leaders but Hadi moved preemptively to put a lid on things by issuing the "no comment" directive.

Yet again this directive was a manifestation of a feature of PAS that its partners, past and present, among the opposition must find most unsettling.

This is that while PAS is a democratic party, it has a monolithic superstructure.

Party members at the bottom of its pyramid of power are free to choose their leaders but once this set is elevated to higher levels of the hierarchy, the set-up becomes monolithic in that a select few dictate policy while the rest have to fall in line.

One or the other Islamic principle is invoked to compel the acquiescence of the many in the decisions of a few.

Thus pluralism and liberalism are pejorative terms in the Islamist lexicon, rendering Islamist politics incompatible with democracy.

Example of Tunisia

Of course, exponents of Islamist politics point to Tunisia as an example of possibility of its compatibility with democracy.

But a look at the way Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has turned out is enough to give pause to proponents of Islamism’s compatibility with democracy: Erdogan has metamorphosed into an autocrat after using democratic means to get him to the top of the pole of political power in his country.

All this prologue to the point that the democratic forces within the Malaysian opposition should take a good hard look at the proposition that PAS can be relied on as a steady partner in the quest to unseat Umno-BN in the next general election (GE14).

Umno is almost certainly at its weakest state in its seven-decade existence, with its current president having succeeded in converting the party into an echo chamber for any line that he may elect to lay down as party orthodoxy.

Underlings in the party see no future for them in voicing dissent; only mild variations on the presidential theme are allowed.

Unfortunately for the opposition, this is the direction in which PAS is also headed, under Hadi’s leadership, supported by spiritual leader Dr Haron Din.

If PAS proves amenable to Najib’s courtship, the opposition can expect more dissidence in the Islamist party, leading to more departures from its ranks.

Also, if Umno-PAS collaboration becomes more real, divisions will appear within BN, with non-Muslim components of the ruling coalition looking to get out.

The opposition Pakatan Harapan must possess the flexibility and vision to brace themselves for a realignment of forces.

An evolving Najib-Hadi axis bodes instability for coalitions.

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.