Najib persists with the luring game

Umno president Najib Razak is taking up where his party's mouthpiece, Utusan Malaysia, left off.

Najib said yesterday that his party is open to talks with PAS on the issue of cooperation between them on the administration of Islam.

At the conclusion of the PAS muktamar last weekend, the Islamic party's president, Abdul Hadi Awang, in an apparent sop to the unity-with-Umno faction within his party, had offered to talk with Umno on cooperation on matters pertaining to Islamic administration.

The faction had not gained the upper hand in PAS' internal elections. Hadi's offer was not only an earnest of good Islamic form but was also placation to elements within his party said to be uneasy with Pakatan Rakyat.

That the Umno president wasted no time in accepting the offer is a continuing reflection of a desire to entice components of the opposition alliance to leave it.

In the immediate aftermath of the general election last May, Najib had tried to draw PKR away from Pakatan by trying to lure Anwar Ibrahim into talks brokered by former Indonesian vice-president Jusuf Kalla, offering cabinet posts to PKR to leave Pakatan and join Najib's administration.

The moves failed. Anwar was resolute in rejecting unilateral talks with the Umno supremo and was firm on not wanting to join the Najib administration.

Now, after Utusan had failed in enabling the Ulama faction to obtain a majority of the influential levers of power in PAS - the faction is viewed as pliable to the notion of Islamic unity with Umno - Najib is haring down an avenue he must think would bring the success that had eluded him in his manoeuvre, via Jusuf, with PKR.

The aim, of course, is to break up Pakatan by offering one or another component a deal that would entice it to leave the opposition alliance.

Straddling the divide 

PAS, at its 59th muktamar last weekend, chose to confirm within the hierarchy of its leadership personnel wholly averse to the notion of collaboration with Umno.

PAS president Hadi, in his keynote address, had called for greater cohesion among the Pakatan parties and for a deepening of the channels of cooperation.

This call came despite strong promptings emanating from its ulama wing for a review of the party's relationship with PKR, in particular.

Adept at straddling the divide between cold-on-Pakatan and pro-Pakatan elements within his party, Hadi continued to opt for a stance that has him paddling the waters on both sides: while calling for greater collaboration within Pakatan, he also held out the olive branch of talks with Umno on cooperation on matters of Islamic administration.

With seemingly little to lose in acting out the incantatory forms of Islamic unity, Umno's Najib has responded by accepting the offer.

This acceptance won't discomfort PAS' allies, DAP and PKR, unduly because almost three decades after the floating of muzakarrah (talks on Islamic unity) between Umno and PAS, the initiative has lain in a kind of limbo - saluted in the utterance and scanted in the reality.

The offer of aid to Kelantan

For a sense of this gap between incantatory rhetoric and recalcitrant reality, note Najib's proviso when accepting Hadi's offer of talks: the Umno chief said he wanted more details from PAS on the scope of the talks.

This is the opening for a whole gamut of pre-meeting wrangles that would have the effect of underscoring the gulf between the two parties when it comes to Islam.

The chasm is unbridgeable because Umno is an ethnocentric party which uses Islam to hold together a variety of business and political interests, whereas PAS is an Islamic party intent on espousing the universalism of its religious ideals.

Since good Islamic form requires the acceptance of public expressions of a desire to discuss cooperation between political exponents professing the same religion, the charade must be played out even when it has led to a limbo.

However, there is now one factor that would help keep matters at the negotiating stage. The PAS government in Kelantan needs help from the federal authorities on issues of development of infrastructure.

Developmental infrastructure in Kelantan is in dire need of not only refurbishment but also expansion. Prime Minister Najib could use the offer of aid on that score as bait to keep an ulama-dominated state administration in Kota Bharu in the mood to be malleable to Umno's machinations where previously, the preceding Nik Aziz Nik Mat-led government, were not.

Nik Aziz, ailing but still the spiritual leader of PAS, was famously invulnerable to Umno's wiles during his 23-year tenure (1990-2013) as menteri besar of Kelantan.

His successors may not be.

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TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for four decades now. He likes the profession because it keeps him in touch with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them.