From Terence Netto
There is a gaping ‘credibility gap’ that parties talking to PAS must push the Islamist party to tackle.
Evidence of this gap was conspicuous during the party’s general assembly earlier this week.
A youth leader in the party’s Penang chapter was quoted as saying there is “no way” a non-Muslim can become the leader of Muslims.
The youth leader was referring to the case of Dominic Lau, the Gerakan president who was fielded by Perikatan Nasional in the Malay majority state seat of Bayan Lepas, in legislative assembly elections in Penang in August 2023.
The PAS grassroots were unhappy at the party’s decision to field Lau in the contest which led to PH affiliate, Amanah, eventually prising the seat from PAS.
PAS had won the seat in the 2013 and 2018 general elections.
The PAS grassroots unhappiness with the decision still lingers as seen from the rhetoric vented by youth leaders at the party’s just-held muktamar.
One would have thought growing evidence of contacts between discontented components of Barisan Nasional, namely MIC and
MCA, on the one hand and PAS on the other, on the possibility of electoral collaboration between the two heading towards GE16, would have made PAS pliant to overtures from non-Muslim parties.
But no, this was not the case, judging from the rhetoric emanating from some PAS youth leaders.
One of them chastised his party for allowing a non-Muslim (Lau) to be fielded as a candidate of PN in a Muslim majority constituency.
This is a stance that will put off non-Muslims.
It will also subtract from the credibility of the assurance given by PAS supremo Abdul Hadi Awang at the party conclave that
his party will uphold the Federal Constitution and its guarantee of rights of the non-Muslims should PAS be given the mandate to govern.
MCA and MIC, both clearly discounted with their marginalised status as BN members within the Madani administration, are talking to PAS about what the latter can offer them should they join PN.
They should welcome the assurances about non-Muslim rights offered by Hadi, but they should also push him on statements he had made in the past that the 1957 Merdeka Constitution is a colonial imposition, and therefore is suspect in the eyes of the Islamists.
This is the best time for the non-Muslim interlocutors of PAS to come to grips with them over this seeming “double talk”.
There is nothing like the processes of democracy and of electoral politics to make religious and other hardline ideologues emollient to people for whom finality is not the language of politics.
Look at what has happened to the BJP, a Hindu fundamentalist party, in the messy, yet functioning, democratic politics of India.
The party has had to cool its ideological ardour and compromise in the interest of sustainable federal coalition building.
PAS would have to do the same.
Terence Netto is a senior journalist and an FMT reader.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.
