Ensuring strong Malay support for Pakatan

Posed with a question on the scenario of a Pakatan Rakyat Federal government that has Malay members of parliament as minority, PAS's director of research Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad said the matter was not trivial, describing it a dilemma for Malay voters.

According to the Kuala Selangor MP, the country's politics is at the crossroads, with the Malay-Muslim community torn between choosing to stay with UMNO due to Malay sentiments that do not take into account corruption, and supporting PAS and Pakatan Rakyat, the multi-racial coalition which eyes a change in the political landscape.

Dzulkefly said UMNO's greatest fear was PAS's steady movement to the 'centre', and this includes its adaptation of the benevolent state.

“It will be easier for UMNO if PAS continues to be perceived as an hardline party which talks about hudud laws, because UMNO can then tell the non-Muslims that ‘If PR wins, you better watch out!’,” Dzulkefly told the forum “Analysis of the Post GE-13 Political Direction” last night.

PAS’s transformation, however, has forced UMNO to use right-wing fronts such as Perkasa and Jati as its whipping boys, to portray PAS as a party that deviated from its Islamic principles.

“That doesn’t make the party more unIslamic. On the other hand, PAS leaders must learn to articulate in the modern political language, focusing on UMNO-BN’s abuses which have cost the people the prosperity they deserved,” he said, adding that this was the biggest challenge faced by PAS currently.

Dzulkefly, who is in the PAS Central Committee, urged Muslim NGOs to free the siege mentality among Muslims that was being encouraged by UMNO, through such claims as the 'Christian threat'.

“It must not continue to dwell itself in the dogma of Muslims or non-Muslims, hudud or no hudud or others,” he said.

The Malay Muslims, he stressed, must be approached with issues beyond hudud laws, and be told of the rampant abuses by the current administration, saying this would automatically lead to a recognition to the need for a change of government.

According to Dzulkefly, PAS could handle UMNO even without hudud on PR's common policy platform, saying Islam is strongly opposed to corruption and wealth embezzlement.

“The abuses and crimes committed by UMNO over the past five decades and which continue today are sinful and despicable. The gross mismanagement is unIslamic and anti-Islam, against Tawhid (oneness of God) and the Qur'an. That’s how we should describe UMNO,” he added.

-Harakahdaily