COMMENT | Terengganu is not only lacking in leadership, but it is also short of strategies to win the hearts and minds of the people.

PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang used to fire up the religious sentiments of the electorate to encourage them to vote against Umno, at one point infamously declaring Umno and its members as infidels.

His political offensive worked up to a point, but now seems to have lost its steam.

The trust among the grassroots in Terengganu is vanishing, with the party betraying its opposition coalition members, and their leaders fully exposed by their secretive relationship with Umno.

When PAS won Terengganu way back in 1999, many political pundits said even PAS leaders themselves were shocked at the results. It wasn’t expected that BN would lose so badly.

Although officially taking over the state government, they clearly did not know what to do with the state and how to govern it. Their lack of experience was badly exposed, and they could not come to terms with power, authority and governing mechanisms.

Predictably, their incompetence and lack of ability to govern were laid bare for the people to see for five years. By the next general election in 2004, Terengganu voters rejected PAS outright, and the results were completely reversed.

The party lost all but four state seats. Even Hadi lost his coveted Marang parliamentary seat.

History has a habit of repeating itself. The situation with PAS and Umno right now is almost similar. PAS has let down not only their previous coalition partners in the opposition, but also all those who voted for them in the 13th general election.

PAS is now but a parrot to Umno, short on election ideas, but long in bank balance. Umno, on the other hand, is besieged with so many scandals and corruption cases; long in bank balance, yes, but having no answers to all the abbreviations: 1MDB, GST and FGV....