With Nik Aziz gone, the road is open for Hadi to strike PAS-UMNO alliance

The late PAS Spiritual Advisor Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, 84, would best be remembered in the peninsula for playing a leading role during his time in increasing the popularity of the Islamic party among non-Muslims in particular despite his ketuanan Islam, which he alleged, Umno had rejected for a narrower Malay nationalism which debased everyone.

He frequently clashed with former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Islam. Mahathir never failed to ridicule Nik Aziz’s credentials as Tok Guru but at the same time feared the Islamic leader.

Nik Aziz had been the strongest advocate of Pakatan Rakyat (PR), the informal Opposition Alliance formed on April 1, 2008 by his party getting together with the Democratic Action Party (DAP) and the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), an unlikely trio helmed by the weakest in the link i.e. PKR which had the charismatic Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim as its de facto Chief. Anwar was the so-called glue factor.

Umno, he frequently stressed, was all about ketuanan Melayu, anathema to the Islam in him.

It was this ketuanan Islam-ketuanan Melayu disconnect, pointed out Nik Aziz in mid-2010, why PAS and Umno could never get together. He didn’t buy appeals to Malay unity because it was based on the race factor which to him, again being Muslim, was unIslamic and in conflict with the concept of the ummah which transcended narrow nationalism.

He once publicly warned, rather dramatically for one who otherwise had a somewhat gentle nature and countenance, that he would “spit in the face of any PAS leader who pushed for an alliance with Umno”.

Again, in mid-2010, he dismissed Umno as a party of “great liars’ and that “we learn from our mistakes”. Umno was seen as constantly plotting against PAS and planning its destruction.

It was certainly the case, considering the history of the origin of PAS, of once bitten twice shy. PAS was formed in 1951 by Islamic clerics in Umno.

He had personally experienced the bitterness of leading the party after it was ejected in 1978 from the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) which it had joined in 1974, given Umno’s mantra on Malay unity, in the wake of the searing May 13 Malay-Chinese race riots in 1969 followed by the suspension of Parliament and democracy.

The year 1978 was a particularly bitter one where PAS lost Kelantan, the result of its ill-thought and hasty alliance with Umno in 1974 through BN, and it was not until 1990 that the party regained power in its traditional stronghold. Nik Aziz was Kelantan Menteri Besar from October 22, 1990 to May 6, 2013, an unprecedented 23 years.

Nik Aziz has been criticised for his hardline Islamic views including the Syariah for Muslims.

There was also his suggestion that women would be at a lower risk of being raped if they stopped using lipstick and perfume. He was also recorded once as stating during a ceramah that fashionable and sexy-dressing women deserved to be raped.

There was also a time when he called for snooker, the game, to be banned for 15 years.

In early 2012, he declared that God was a great liar and big samseng. He was greeted by silence over this remark. Many people concluded that he, in his “genius”, had perhaps uttered something so profound as to defy all comprehension and description and were left in even more awe of the man.

In May 2012, he publicly stated in response to the then DAP Chairman Karpal Singh, that the Malaysian Prime Minister must be Muslim.

Nik Aziz trotted out the argument that just as a communist state will not allow a democrat to be its head of government, and a democratic state will not allow a communist to be head of government, an Islamic state cannot allow a non-Muslim to be head of government. It was Karpal who had once infamously remarked: “Islamic state in Malaysia over my dead body”.

Nik Aziz did an about-turn in the interest of “party unity”. In 2012, he initially disagreed with the Umno take that Allah was exclusive to Muslims. He softened his position, after rumblings within his own party, and pontificated somewhat sanctimoniously that those who believed in more than one God, implying Christians, should not use Allah. - FMT