PAS Leadership: New Faces and Old Constraints

Summary

“Has anyone seen PAS?” was one of the “X-files” or unresolved puzzles that opposition-leaning independent online newspaper Malaysiakini identified at the end of 2006. “While other opposition parties are busy gearing up to face the next general election, PAS appears to be doing nothing”, at a time when “party president Abdul Hadi Awang seems to have lost his fangs”, and PAS’ former pet issues such as apostasy and the position of Islam in the Federal Constitution have been championed by non-governmental organizations. Malaysiakini asked, has PAS “lost its voice?”

The situation in 2006 can be contrasted with the excitement associated with the election of a set of younger and more sophisticated leaders at the party's Muktamar (national congress) in June 2005 with the promise of a generation shift and a “re-branding” of the party's image. Surely it was not the intention of the new leaders to hide the party away from the populace. The new leadership aimed to make PAS — Parti Islam Se-Malaysia, or Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party — more appealing to the multi-ethnic mainstream Malaysian society by quietly discarding some sacred hardline goals, such as the establishment of an Islamic state. PAS’ perceived inactivity was, therefore, a corollary of this attempt to move to the middle ground by avoiding uncompromising religious views. But as it continues to be limited by the same old systemic constraints placed on a (more or less) “permanent” opposition party, this may just mean a “neither here nor there” situation in the near future. The new leaders will be put to test in the June 2007 party election and the differences between the “mainstreamers” and the “idealists” may continue to influence intra-party politics.

PAS: Going Mainstream vs. Preserving Ideal

PAS was founded in 1951 by members of the religious wing of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) and has since competed with UMNO for Malay-Muslim support. The party has consistently secured at least 30 per cent of votes from among the electorate in peninsular Malaysia since the 1955 federal election and has maintained particularly strong support from states in the Malay belt — Perlis, Kedah, Kelantan, and Terengganu.