There has been urm…trouble in paradise. Pakatan paradise. In the past few months, the news about Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) leaving the opposition alliance has been intensifying.
But despite all that’s being said, does PAS actually intend to leave Pakatan and maybe join up with UMNO? We thought so… To be honest, this article was intended to be about what would happen if PAS left Pakatan. So we asked our usual ever-ready parliamentary consultants, Ooi Heng from KPRU and Ong Kian Ming from DAP for their thoughts on PAS leaving Pakatan.
*Disclaimer: UMNO and BN may be used interchangeably throughout this article.
The experts don’t think PAS will leave Pakatan
So this is more or less why we had to change our title for this article. Haiya.
Writer: What are the reasons why PAS would want to leave Pakatan? Ooi Heng: Contrary to popular belief, I don’t think that PAS would want to leave Pakatan.
Well maybe our minds didn’t explode but we certainly weren’t expecting that answer.
At that moment we jam already. Despite of all this talk about PAS leaving and Pakatan breaking up, Ooi Heng didn’t think it would happen. Ong Kian Ming then said that while there are those who are uncomfortable with working with Pakatan (and even those who would rather work with UMNO), there are also those who would want to stay with Pakatan.
“I would say that more than 50% of PAS members want the party to remain within Pakatan.” – Ong Kian Ming
But why is there this divide in PAS? Well there has been a lot of news going around about how the problems stem from the current president of PAS, Dato’ Seri Haji Abdul Hadi Awang.
PasMa president, Datuk Phahrolrazi Mohd Zawawi. Head of the party that could possibly replace PAS in Pakatan. Photo credit to The Star.
But until then, as far as official news goes, PAS has said that they are committed to Pakatan Rakyat.
“I urge all parties in Pakatan Rakyat to be magnanimous and optimistic in protecting the co-operation and not be negative or pessimistic as it would only weaken the relationship.
The Malay Mail also reported that Hadi said that he is still for Pakatan for the time being.
“For now (I) am still with Pakatan. I still sit in the same seat. I am now focused on the muktamar (PAS general assembly). We will wait and see.” – PAS president, Abdul Hadi Awang, as quoted by The Malay Mail Online
You can imagine DAP giving a response like this to Hadi when he said he was still with Pakatan.
In a nutshell, all that we’ve written kinda points to PAS staying in Pakatan. But even if they leave?
PAS will most likely not join UMNO
Back in 1974, PAS and UMNO joined for a single four-year run. We won’t go into detail about it but basically PAS was in fact part of the Alliance (later Barisan National). It didn’t end well. A power struggle led to BN taking advantage of the situation and taking Kelantan from PAS.
However, Ooi Heng didn’t think that this would happen.
“PAS joining BN is unlikely due to PAS previous experience with BN” – Ooi Heng
However, Ooi Heng did mention the possibility of PAS not joining but supporting Najib’s agenda. This would be advantageous in situations such as a two-thirds majority.
Ong Kian Ming took a different approach to his response. He said that PAS would be more inclined to join BN ONLY if PAKATAN fell apart.
“I think if Pakatan breaks up, there will be more pressure for PAS to move closer to BN for two reasons. One push reason is because Pakatan is no longer there to hold PAS back from working with BN / UMNO. One pull reason is that UMNO may try to entice PAS in order to strengthen the Malay support for the BN.” – Ong Kian Ming
But how about what we can gather from the news? Well, PAS information chief, Datuk Mahfuz Omar said this.
For PAS (or any party) to get things done, they have to pick a side in the end
Those are the Sabah (bottom) and Sarawak (top) flags, in case you were wondering. Image credit to theantdaily.comFormer Vice President of PAS, Ustaz Ahmad Awang who will be challenging Dato’ Seri Haji Abdul Hadi Awang for PAS president. Photo credit to The Malaysian Insider.
So here’s the thing. There are way too many people in Malaysia that don’t support an ultra-conservative Muslim regime. So PAS is not going to win an election on their own anytime soon.
In GE13, PAS won 21 seats vs PKR’s 30 and DAP’s impressive 38 (own from GE12’s 23 seats, and GE10’s 27 seats). So they’re the smallest factor, but still an important 26% of the overall vote, particularly in the northern states. But alot of that goodwill seems to stem from their part in PAKATAN as well.
“Whoever breaks up Pakatan will be penalised in the next GE. If in the end PAS stays and DAP quits, DAP will also be penalised,” says Ooi Heng
But if they decide to leave anyway?
Left to right: Ustaz Ahmad Awang & Dato’ Seri Haji Abdul Hadi Awang, the two contenders for the position of PAS president. Photo credit to straitstimes.com
Ong Kian Ming said that in the event that PAS leaves, the opposition would have to do some rethinking to do.
“It would be a blow to Pakatan in the short term but it presents opportunities for the opposition to reconfigure itself especially if PAS moves closer to UMNO and this makes other non-UMNO BN parties especially in Sarawak and Sabah very uncomfortable.” – Ong Kian Ming
Alot of this comes down to the coming PAS party polls in June. Ong Kian Ming doesn’t believe that PAS would officially leave Pakatan even if Abdul Hadi Awang were to retain his position as party president. And Ooi Heng agreed with this saying that if Hadi did win the party elections, he would rally PAS to continue pushing forward with Pakatan.
BUT, he also added that if PAS saw a change in leadership, it would redefine its political message to be one that is in sync with Pakatan’s goals.
Until the PAS party polls, can everyone just chillout for a while?
June isn’t that far away, and on balance, no political party has anything to gain from in-fighting. It just makes the people lose confidence, like children watching their parents fight.