The way PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang has straddled the obvious divide in his party between those who are untroubled about their participation in Pakatan Rakyat and those who are uncomfortable with it compels attention.
It's a divide that has the potential to break up the party with both sides acutely conscious of the possibility, a consideration that has the salutary effect of restraining them from taking their claims too far.
Thus PAS has emerged from its annual general assembly last week in Kota Bharu with the fissures between its Pakatan enthusiasts and its doubters self-evident, but not self-immolating.
Credit for that belongs to the president. Like a canoeist paddling on both sides of the craft as it negotiates rapids, Hadi has managed with a certain amount of panache to keep both factions within the fold while leaving everyone guessing as to where he actually stands.
This has been a balancing act of some shrewdness which he has been brought off by a blend of the preemptive and the proactive.
The maneuvers by which he achieved his purpose of balancing the two sides began a few months ago when he publicly intimated that he wanted his party to relief him of the need to contest both state and parliamentary seats.
He said he preferred instead to campaign for the party in general rather than be lumbered with the added tasks of concentrating on the Rhu Rendang state and Marang parliamentary wards of which he is the elected representative.
In Malay political culture, a candidate must seem to be retiring rather than pert, the better he embellishes his credentials for elevation within the hierarchy.
Moreover, in a specifically Muslim political culture, it is the done thing to appear otherworldly which Hadi managed to convey by saying he actually preferred to go fishing off the coast of Terengganu rather than mind the electoral waters that work the Rhu Rendang and Marang legislative turbines.
This blend of self-effacement and otherworldliness had the desired effect in that not only did luminaries from both sides of the divide in the party clamour for Hadi to stay put, but also Pakatan supremo Anwar Ibrahim was on record as saying that Hadi's services were essential to the opposition coalition.
Sticking point
After that, it was time for him to doff his cap to the pro-Pakatan side which he did by claiming that PAS gains by cooperating with the DAP within the Pakatan fold.
This collaboration is a sticking point with orthodox elements in PAS to whom Karpal Singh's "over my dead body" stance on the Islamic state of several years ago - from which the DAP chairperson recanted - rattles like an intruder in the attic of the party's collective memory.
Hadi's limning of the benefits of PAS' working together with the DAP went some way in reminding hardliners that no party can govern a racially and religious diverse country like Malaysia alone.
Hadi's stance here was a salutary reminder that for a party to govern Malaysia at the federal level, it has to have the cooperation of non-Muslims to do that effectively.
He also reminded his listeners that PAS had elected to cooperate with DAP and PKR to save the country from the depredations inflicted by a half-century of BN misrule.
This was a deft touch because in their ardour for an ideological purity that would frown on cooperation with adamant secularists like the DAP, PAS hardliners are apt to forget the advanced decay in which BN rule has left the country.
An Islamic party would be derelict in its obligations to the ummah if it disdained to cooperate with non-Muslims from pristine considerations.
Praise for the benefits of cooperation with DAP was followed by a proactive foray by Hadi when a fortnight before the PAS annual general assembly, he said that he would be willing to contest the Pekan parliamentary seat occupied by Prime Minister and BN chief Najib Abdul Razak.
This was a startling offer. It smacked of a game of one-upmanship in which Hadi was seen to want to have the better of his peers in the top tier of the Pakatan leadership cohort.
It was also calculated to appease those elements in PAS who are distinctly discomfited with the notion of Anwar Ibrahim, whom they view as an exponent of religious pluralism, as prime minister-designate of Pakatan.
By offering to contest Najib in his Pekan bastion, Hadi was subtly signaling these elements that he is not exactly content to play second fiddle to Anwar in Pakatan.
The offer to contest was more symbolic than substantive and was preemptive in that it placed Hadi in the enviable situation where when, at the party assembly, a member of the ulama wing said that he ought to be Pakatan's PM-designate, Hadi could demure on the grounds that he was more interested in ensuring a victory for Pakatan than in lofty spoils.
Often in politics, preemptive positioning matters more than one's real stance in the crunch and here Hadi, in golfing parlance, had himself nicely pre-positioned to finesse a difficult lie.
A two-hour presidential speech at the PAS assembly without touching on the controversial hudud issue while plugging the concept of Islamic welfare was another instance of Hadi's shrewd paddling which he followed up nicely by discounting Dr Mahathir Mohamad's challenge that PAS should want to impose hudud laws on everyone, and not just Muslims.
The PAS president reiterated that if his party were to impose hudud, it would be for Muslims only.
The political straddle is not an elevated art but in Hadi Awang's hands these last months, he has given it a deft touch which reminds observers anew that politics is indeed the arena of the possible.
It's a divide that has the potential to break up the party with both sides acutely conscious of the possibility, a consideration that has the salutary effect of restraining them from taking their claims too far.
Thus PAS has emerged from its annual general assembly last week in Kota Bharu with the fissures between its Pakatan enthusiasts and its doubters self-evident, but not self-immolating.
Credit for that belongs to the president. Like a canoeist paddling on both sides of the craft as it negotiates rapids, Hadi has managed with a certain amount of panache to keep both factions within the fold while leaving everyone guessing as to where he actually stands.This has been a balancing act of some shrewdness which he has been brought off by a blend of the preemptive and the proactive.
The maneuvers by which he achieved his purpose of balancing the two sides began a few months ago when he publicly intimated that he wanted his party to relief him of the need to contest both state and parliamentary seats.
He said he preferred instead to campaign for the party in general rather than be lumbered with the added tasks of concentrating on the Rhu Rendang state and Marang parliamentary wards of which he is the elected representative.
In Malay political culture, a candidate must seem to be retiring rather than pert, the better he embellishes his credentials for elevation within the hierarchy.Moreover, in a specifically Muslim political culture, it is the done thing to appear otherworldly which Hadi managed to convey by saying he actually preferred to go fishing off the coast of Terengganu rather than mind the electoral waters that work the Rhu Rendang and Marang legislative turbines.
This blend of self-effacement and otherworldliness had the desired effect in that not only did luminaries from both sides of the divide in the party clamour for Hadi to stay put, but also Pakatan supremo Anwar Ibrahim was on record as saying that Hadi's services were essential to the opposition coalition.
Sticking point
After that, it was time for him to doff his cap to the pro-Pakatan side which he did by claiming that PAS gains by cooperating with the DAP within the Pakatan fold.
This collaboration is a sticking point with orthodox elements in PAS to whom Karpal Singh's "over my dead body" stance on the Islamic state of several years ago - from which the DAP chairperson recanted - rattles like an intruder in the attic of the party's collective memory.
Hadi's limning of the benefits of PAS' working together with the DAP went some way in reminding hardliners that no party can govern a racially and religious diverse country like Malaysia alone.
Hadi's stance here was a salutary reminder that for a party to govern Malaysia at the federal level, it has to have the cooperation of non-Muslims to do that effectively.
He also reminded his listeners that PAS had elected to cooperate with DAP and PKR to save the country from the depredations inflicted by a half-century of BN misrule.
This was a deft touch because in their ardour for an ideological purity that would frown on cooperation with adamant secularists like the DAP, PAS hardliners are apt to forget the advanced decay in which BN rule has left the country.
An Islamic party would be derelict in its obligations to the ummah if it disdained to cooperate with non-Muslims from pristine considerations.
Praise for the benefits of cooperation with DAP was followed by a proactive foray by Hadi when a fortnight before the PAS annual general assembly, he said that he would be willing to contest the Pekan parliamentary seat occupied by Prime Minister and BN chief Najib Abdul Razak.This was a startling offer. It smacked of a game of one-upmanship in which Hadi was seen to want to have the better of his peers in the top tier of the Pakatan leadership cohort.
It was also calculated to appease those elements in PAS who are distinctly discomfited with the notion of Anwar Ibrahim, whom they view as an exponent of religious pluralism, as prime minister-designate of Pakatan.
By offering to contest Najib in his Pekan bastion, Hadi was subtly signaling these elements that he is not exactly content to play second fiddle to Anwar in Pakatan.
The offer to contest was more symbolic than substantive and was preemptive in that it placed Hadi in the enviable situation where when, at the party assembly, a member of the ulama wing said that he ought to be Pakatan's PM-designate, Hadi could demure on the grounds that he was more interested in ensuring a victory for Pakatan than in lofty spoils.
Often in politics, preemptive positioning matters more than one's real stance in the crunch and here Hadi, in golfing parlance, had himself nicely pre-positioned to finesse a difficult lie.
A two-hour presidential speech at the PAS assembly without touching on the controversial hudud issue while plugging the concept of Islamic welfare was another instance of Hadi's shrewd paddling which he followed up nicely by discounting Dr Mahathir Mohamad's challenge that PAS should want to impose hudud laws on everyone, and not just Muslims.The PAS president reiterated that if his party were to impose hudud, it would be for Muslims only.
The political straddle is not an elevated art but in Hadi Awang's hands these last months, he has given it a deft touch which reminds observers anew that politics is indeed the arena of the possible.
TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for close on four decades. He likes the occupation because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them. It is the ideal occupation for a temperament that finds power fascinating and its exercise abhorrent.
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