Hadi and the sacrifice of PAS’ national relevance

Selangor PAS commissioner Iskandar Samad made a thought-provoking comment last week. He said: “Selangor is very important for PAS. It shows that PAS is not an East Coast or Malay Belt party, but a national party.”

As we look forward, the question of what PAS is, and what it is becoming could be the subject of fruitful inquiry.

I think in many ways, the direction of PAS is being shaped largely by president Abdul Hadi Awang, and his team that was elected in a landslide victory in the last PAS elections.

Hadi gets a lot of flak, some of it deserved, some of it less so. I’m certainly no expert on the man, but perhaps we can speculate on his mentality and vision, and how it affects the rest of Malaysia.

PAS now committed

Opposition unity tends to be relatively stronger before general elections, and considerably weaker after general elections.

There being less reason to band together without looming elections, Malaysian opposition parties tend to retreat and adopt stances that pander more to their hardcore bases.

I think we can see this in both DAP and PAS post-GE13, arguably starting with the former.

Around the time of the backfiring Kajang Move, Lim Guan Eng started pushing PAS further and further away, practically ensuring the electoral defeat of the more progressive leaders in PAS, which led to the much more DAP friendly, MCA-like splinter party, Amanah.

PAS is a bigger, older and generally slower moving party, so it took them a bit longer to fully realise the split from the old Pakatan Rakyat mentality, but we are seeing that inclination come into full force now, as Hadi declares unequivocally (and unwisely) that PAS will not work with any allies of DAP or Amanah.

A loss of hope

The reason Pakatan Rakyat split up is because leaders like Guan Eng, and now Hadi, either lost faith in the vision they shared leading up to GE13, or were simply no longer willing to work hard for it.

Like a marriage, no union will survive unless its members are really committed to fight for it.

Essentially, the thinking in both parties is to sacrifice national goals for smaller local ones.

Hadi and Guan Eng are similar in one key aspect - deep down, they feel that the current existing players in the opposition have little to no hope of winning federal elections.

If this is so, then the ‘smart’ political approach is to concentrate on battles that they can win.

In Guan Eng’s case, this generally means securing DAP’s fiefdom of Penang, along with all its considerable resources, at whatever cost.

Hadi’s response to the same reality is a bit more colourful.

What is Hadi’s endgame?

I think that while many disagree with Hadi’s politics and his interpretation of religion, fewer tend to doubt his religious commitment - that is, relatively few doubt that he does what he does out of true religious conviction.

PAS is a rather unique party in that more so than any other party in Malaysia, they have a goal and a frame of reference that is not entirely political in nature.

Many or most people in PAS see political power as a vehicle, rather than an end onto itself.

While this is also true of the more principled people in other political parties, in the case of PAS, the end goal is one that supersedes all other goals. After all, what is more important than God or the afterlife?

So, I think we can interpret Hadi’s moves as motivated by a desire to advance his ideas of Islamic governance in Malaysia, however small a step at a time.

A man like Hadi believes that this is literally what he was put on earth to do, and to fail would be an affront to God.

Not being particularly young, perhaps Hadi feels the clock is ticking on his mission to leave a tangible legacy behind.

Is it important to PAS to be nationally relevant?

Passing Act 355 would certainly achieve these goals. Essentially, perhaps Hadi wants to see at least one solid step forward towards the PAS vision before he leaves.

What is more relevant to the rest of us is what Hadi is willing to sacrifice in order to do so.

Iskandar’s comment is interesting and pertinent I think. In GE12 and GE13, PAS showed itself to be a nationally relevant party, especially by participating meaningfully in the Selangor government, one of the most diverse, populous and prosperous states in the nation.

For most of its history, PAS had only been truly been politically relevant in what Iskandar called the Malay Belt.

In that reality, it was hard for PAS to ever be more than a second or third rate player at the national level.

Whatever he may tell his party members, I think Hadi understands this. I also think however, that being nationally relevant has moved down considerably in Hadi’s list of priorities.

I think the way he weighs said priorities, advancing what he views as Islamic governance is more important than being a big player at the federal and/or West Coast level.

I wouldn’t say Hadi is in any hurry to lose PAS’ influence in the Selangor government, but rather that he has conceded that such a loss is an acceptable risk. Like DAP in Penang, PAS is also looking to secure its base, even if it has to be at the expanse of PAS’ influence in the West Coast.

Better to rule in hell, than to serve in heaven?

The number of things Hadi appears willing to risk in pursuit of goals such as passing Act 355 include: making deals with Umno, sacrificing PAS’ relevance in Selangor and other non-Malay Belt states, and alienating non-Muslims.

It feels like in Hadi’s political calculus, these are acceptable risks because he believes that PAS has achieved all it can by trying the opposite tack.

Perhaps he has become convinced that even if PAS doubled down on the Pakatan Rakyat formula, results would not significantly improve beyond GE13 levels.

Perhaps he feels furthermore that even if a Pakatan Rakyat-type coalition succeeded, DAP would continue to remain an antagonist towards PAS - and one with a relatively high number of seats (and thus influence), given Chinese sentiment in the country presently.

In other words, it may be worth more to ‘lose’ with Umno, than to win with DAP.

Needless to say, I don’t share this view; but then again, I’m not the president of PAS.

Rally proves little, either way

I don’t feel that the Act 355 rally is particularly significant one way or another. It did not prove massive national support for hudud, not did it prove any sort of weakness or failing in PAS.

PAS has always been good at mobilising big numbers, and last Saturday was no exception.

Like Bersih, there are some issues that will always attract a large hardcore following. Said following however almost never represent the middle majority or swing voters, making them poor predictors of elections.

I think that outside the Malay belt, there are no states where issues like hudud will be a defining issue in an election.

If PAS and Umno do not universally contest against each other in the next general election, then the issue of hudud for Malay voters will essentially be moot anyway.

I imagine many will feel me too lax for saying so, but I suspect all the legal, technical and political difficulties of passing acts like Act 355 will make implementation of hudud a rather long off affair.

This is one reason Act 355 did not set its sights as high as many would have liked; achievable baby steps, it seems, is the preferred approach.

I’m sure however that the rally had a chilling effect on many non-Muslims, and a fair number of more liberal, West Coast Muslims as well, further alienating them from PAS.

As the entirety of this article argues however, I think Hadi understands this, and has accepted it as the best of available political options.

Increasing balkanisation

Without opposition from PAS, electoral mathematics suggests that Umno’s road to a GE14 victory will be all but assured.

If this trend continues, we will probably see an increasing balkanisation of Malaysia, with the gap between the east and west coasts on the peninsula getting bigger and bigger on many levels.

Amidst all the politics, and the retreat from the centre into our respective corners, a few still try to bridge the gap.

Dr Ronnie Ooi, who I had the pleasure of meeting sometime ago in a Klang bakery famous for its delicious apple strudel, is helping to organise an English-language forum in Penang (PAS’ lion’s den no less) on Feb 25 which attempts to close the gap in understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims on the issue of hudud.

I suppose realistically, we can’t expect too much impact from such efforts in the here and now.

That said, in the long run, I feel that it is these kind of initiatives that have the best hope of building a future for Malaysia that is defined by mutual understanding, and by what unites us, rather than what divides us.

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NATHANIEL TAN hopes that if you are in Penang on Feb 25, you’ll try to stop by the forum.- Mkini