HADI SMILES WHILE PAS IMPLODES: Despite foxtrot with Najib, Pas won't be able to deliver Selangor coup d'etat

KUALA LUMPUR - Pas president Hadi Awang created a furore when he controversially submitted a Private Members bill, which if approved would have paved the way for Islamic criminal law or 'hudud' to be implemented in Kelantan state.

Umno Prime Minister Najib Razak, who had previously declared he would never allow hudud in Malaysia, was seen back-pedalling furiously. The Umno president effectively gave Hadi a leg-up in the Pas internal polls by allowing Hadi's Bill to creep onto the list of motions to be tabled at Parliament.

That Parliament did not have sufficient time to debate Hadi's Bill is not the point. Why is Umno playing kingmaker in Pas elections and why is Hadi allowing it? He is not answering and oddly, hudud-dazzled Pas members have not seen fit to ask the million-dollar question.

Speculation is also rife that Hadi has agreed to form a state unity government with Umno in Selangor to refurn the favor to Najib. The Pas chief has dismissed the talk but if this 'UG' materializes, it would certainly help Najib beat off the heated attacks from ex premier Mahathir Mohamad, who wants Najib replaced by Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin.

Sad to say both Najib and Pas may have miscalculated badly. Najib is unlikely to win Selangor through a coup d'etat and to make matters worse, his being seen to be 'friendly' with Hadi will cost him more votes from the Malay and non-Malay moderates.

Hadi is possibly the only winner in this daring thrust-and-parry between Najib and Mahathir. The Pas president gets to boost his standing with the ulama and grassroots of Pas. Already leading with 80 nominations for the Pas top post versus his closest rival Husam Musa, who only has 8, Hadi looks a shoo-in at the Pas election.

Hadi's meeting in Indonesia with ex-MB Khalid Ibrahim stirred talk he was about to snatch 5 state assemblymen from PKR to help Pas form a state unity government with Umno. However, the cold reception to the news has thrown a spanner into the works and to save their political skins, Selangor Pas have been quick to promise to support PKR's Azmin Ali as the state's chief minister

But while Hadi breathes easy, the clock ticks down on his foolish and inefficient party. Tarnished by a shocking string of unscrupulous actions by its president, Pas is likely to find itself totally shunned by the non-Malays; while its hold on the Malay electorate is steadily chipped away by Umno.

Squeezed, Pas will go back to being a mosquito party although Hadi will get his wish come true - he stays on as Pas president. Some pundits have warned Kelantan, the jewel in Pas' crown, may be lost.

Accident waiting to happen

While in Malaysia there is this rallying battle cry to be bold and yet moderate, in the state of Kelantan there seems to be a change in tack by their opting to push for hudud laws to be implemented in going against the grain of moderation.

This was an accident waiting to happen as the desolate and disconsolate state of Kelantan has still yet to emerge from the horrendous flash floods that has virtually left the state in a state of devastation. But the Kelantanese are certainly no newcomers to tragedy.

Some years ago it was highlighted that Kelantan had an unusually high rate of divorce among its population especially getting a quickie divorce by way of a spouse merely sending a short message service or SMS on their mobile phones.

It is downright appalling and shocking how the state is descending into real regression and as the Kelantanese people still have not managed to get over and rebuild their lives in the aftermath of last year’s tail-ending flash floods there seems to be more misery piled up for the backward state.

Under the long-running tenure of Tok Guru or Parti PAS spiritual adviser, the late Nik Aziz, the state has been languishing in a time warp and it’s as if time has stood still with Kelantan showing no signs of keep pacing with the developments of modernity.

Shocking malaise

The state of Kelantan suffers from a shocking malaise and it is either they are not aware of the path their leaders have carved for them or they are indifferent and apathetic over their future. Whatever the answer is it spells doom over their attitude.

This is the root of problems in the laid back state where there appears to be no sense of urgency or a need to better themselves or to improve their lot in life. It is really a case of sheer folly that Kelantan has been long neglected by the Barisan Nasional (BN) government in developments plans.

It is only upon realization that the state was so far behind lagging in development that prompted the BN government to moot the initiative of the East Coast Economic Region coming into play to prevent the Kelantanese people from becoming basket cases.

But the people of Kelantan are other worldly and by this it is meant that their focus is on their Islamic beliefs and the hereafter and therefore they pay scant interest in wanting to improve their lot in life and those of the younger generation.

The seeds of ill

The Parti Pas-led Kelantan government has sown the seeds of an ill future by going the way of implementing hudud laws despite strong opposition from the rest of Malaysians who abhor the thought that such primitive laws should be passed by the state government.

In making matters worse, Parti Pas is trying a ridiculous bid to implement hudud laws at the federal government level for these laws to be followed nationwide but this is where their irrationality is coming to a stop.

Most Malaysians, even if they profess to be staunch Muslims, are not of the same ilk as Parti Pas members and pride themselves in being right-thinking and objective in the way and manner they go about conducting and living their lives.

This is why although Parti Pas has a stranglehold on the state of Kelantan and is trying hard to exert its influence further, overall, Malaysians do not favor the push for a dual law system where civil laws and syariah laws work side-by-side.

Parti Pas set to implode

By all rules of convention, every right thinking Malaysian loathes and hates terribly the idea of punishing crime by way of amputation and flogging and stoning and this is why Parti Pas is really triggering their own implosion by trying to get Malaysians to go back to the Dark Ages.

Malaysians of all stripes, whatever they profess or belief in are certainly not going to root for hudud and recoil in horror that what took so many ages to evolve and got rid off should now be professed by Parti Pas as the way forward for Malaysians.

If necessary, perhaps this malaise of ill, this ill-conceived ambition of Parti Pas should only be allowed to be practised in the state of Kelantan as a kind of pilot project to show not only to Malaysians but to the rest of the watching world that hudud should be really confined to history.

Hudud laws promulgated and implemented in Kelantan is set to show how decadent and depraved life is in Kelantan now that it is really the lessons that the people of the state learn from their folly and stupidity that should be the final result.

When the Kelantanese come back to their senses and realize that they are missing from an affirming and positive and healthy life, they will turn to vent their anger, regret and frustrations on Parti Pas for this useless ploy of misleading them into hudud. - MAILBAG