Hoping for the best from PAS muktamar

It’s almost like listening to a broken record that has been remixed again, and again, and again.

Every muktamar since post-2008 general election, there had been a debate in PAS whether or not to remain with DAP and PKR.

And after every muktamar there is a need to have a grand announcement of their latest stance.

And in between muktamar, PAS leaders will hold a few hundred press conferences expressing their readiness to either work with or abandon this Pakatan Rakyat partnership.

Sure, there would be religious terms and technical Arab jurisprudential language, but the bottom line is: “we will willingly work with DAP and PKR for the greater good”.

But isn’t that the same thing said about working with Umno?

As a man no lesser than the great Karpal Singh himself often said: “In politics, there are no permanent friends or enemies, but there must be permanent principles”.

And Karpal walked the talk until the day he left us. Can PAS be said to be sticking to the same political principles it claimed to have just prior to 2008?

Inclusivity and co-existence?  To work on common values? To place the national interests first?  Or was it a ruse to usher in the ungodly hordes of non-Muslim voters eager for reprieve from constantly being told they don’t belong by ruling Umno and looking for a new, less judgmental Malay dominant ruling party?   

PAS has traditionally been a quiet and rather docile party, reflective of its religious raison d’etre.

However, either by its own strategic political posturing, or as a response to the current alarmist, almost belligerent religion-tinged rhetoric, or as a sign of mounting tensions between the conservative and liberal camps in the party, even PAS has started upping the ante in the last few years.

PAS went from embracing non-traditional, non-Muslim support to tolerating it, to what now seems almost like pushing that hard-won support away.

Increasingly loud whispers from the PAS liberal camp and cadres aligned to them have tried to hush this equally increasing malcontent.

The general concerted pitch is that PAS grassroots generally respond poorly to perceived interference in their party affairs.

The PAS rank and file are largely suspicious of “outsiders” and “outside influence” – whether they Erdogans, Anwaristas, Liberals or any other outsider-of-the-day.

Their suspicions are not without basis. PAS has, after all, been abandoned by their allies more than once. From Umno to Semangat 46 and the short-lived Barisan Alternatif.

Moreover, the old timers in PAS would not have forgotten the passionate anti-PAS speeches given by their DAP counterparts, nor easily forgive Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim for choosing Umno over PAS when he left Abim.

The introduction of PasMa into the local political equation and its chumminess with the aforementioned “outsiders” only serve to strengthen the conviction of the conservative camp that PAS is not only facing an external threat in the form of Umno, but an insider threat in the form of agents that wish to change the character of PAS.

But isn’t that what democracy is all about? A mould that changes to hold the aspirations of its members? Perhaps, or perhaps not.

And from the very same common thread of history as well, PAS should remember that politically, at least, bad things occur every time PAS played the hard-line stance.

The last time PAS refused to yield ground, they not only lost a state and widely loosened their grip on another, but managed to thin their parliamentary representation from 27 to seven, nearly bringing it down to a third, in an enlarged Parliament nonetheless.

If political conviction is what is driving the galloping charge with hudud, they may need to reconsider their performance in 1999 – there were many more issues then for the electorate to have even taken religious laws into consideration.

As outsiders, PAS allies can only hope for the best outcome from the coming general assembly. DAP and PKR can be expected to honour the request of the liberal PAS camp in toning down the attacks against the conservative camp ahead of its muktamar.

But what PAS members need to realise is that where patience is concerned, it is not only party members’, or allied members’ that can run thin. The electorate, too, has a limit to their tolerance level for political drama.

And that ultimately, while the direction of every party should undoubtedly be determined by their members, the fates of all parties are determined by the electorate. – May 28, 2015.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.