PAS will have to decide who to work with

YOURSAY | ‘Or in the end, PAS will be neither here (with Harapan) nor there (with Umno/BN).’

Will PAS be able to retain Kelantan?

Kim Quek: The political realities in Kelantan will force PAS to enter into an electoral pact with Umno.

Such a reversal of Nik Aziz Nik Mat’s policy, combined with the absence of Tok Guru’s powerful spiritual influence on the party and the splitting influence of Amanah, PAS’ support among Malays in GE14 will be a pale shadow of what it was in GE13. Needless to say, its support among non-Malays is now zero.

The alliance with Umno would mean that PAS will lose its potency as a spoiler to Pakatan Harapan in any three-cornered fight. Thus, PAS’ usefulness to Umno will be limited, certainly not as rosy as it first appeared to Umno.

In the end, PAS will be neither here (with Harapan) nor there (with Umno/BN), while Harapan will ride on a wave of increasing Malay support, due mainly to the disgruntlement over PM Najib Abdul Razak’s and Umno’s disastrous performance lately.

Anonymous #13114320: As much as I would like to agree with DAP’s Liew Chin Tong, I think you are wrong.

In marginal seats, it’s between PAS and Umno, not Bersatu or Amanah. Those 20 percent who go back will still vote for their home-grown party, no matter how badly it handled other issues.

This won’t change until all the older voters die off. Bersatu or Amanah don’t have what they need, for now.

KCW: The real reason why the ‘fear of DAP’ storyline never works in Kelantan is not because they have a more secure identity but simply because there's no DAP in Kelantan to begin with. DAP did not contest in Kelantan and would never harbour any intention to contest in Kelantan.

And as for feeling more secure in their identity, it's quite obvious - 95 percent of Kelantanese are Malay-Muslims and Chinese population are too tiny to make Kelantanese Malays insecure, plus the Chinese in Kelantan have integrated very well with local culture to the extent that they can even speak like Kelantanese, unlike the west coast Chinese, many of whom until now can't even speak the local language properly.

Furthermore, the Chinese economic hegemony in Kelantan is much less compared to the west coast states of Peninsular Malaysia and does not pose a threat to Kelantanese Malay economic development.

Amanah or PKR or Bersatu can never wrest Kelantan from PAS simply because all the state machinery, institutions and political infrastructure built by PAS for the last 25 years they have been in power are already embedded deep into the roots of the Malay society - from the state to district to kampung to mosque.

And almost all the mosques in Kelantan are controlled by PAS' ustaz and imams. No ustaz or imams from Amanah or PKR or Bersatu are controlling the political-religious discourse in the mosque in Kelantan.

To control the mosque is to control the Malay mind. Without controlling the mosque, it's highly unlikely the coalition of Amanah, PKR and Bersatu will be able to wrest power from PAS in Kelantan.

Voice: Why is PAS still trying to talk to Bersatu to secure a pact despite their dislike of former PM Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Bersatu?

The obvious main reason is to avoid a three-cornered fight which PAS understand very well is not going to do them any favours and with the possibility of causing them to lose Kelantan.

But the truth is that any individual pact secured by PAS with Bersatu or PKR or both will not work and be sustained.

The real reason is that Amanah and DAP might go in and field their candidates in many seats contested by PAS and therefore it will go back to square one, that is, a three-cornered fight, and Bersatu and PKR must give their support for Amanah. Amanah will be the party that makes the final call.

Furthermore, Amanah will be the likely party that can pose more of a threat to PAS and Umno than Bersatu and PKR in Kelantan and Terengganu. It is either a three-cornered fight or securing a pact with Umno for PAS. Harapan has nothing to lose in Kelantan and Terengganu.

The Analyser: Is Liew for real? What value is an honours thesis when you are mouthing the dogma imposed on your brain by your favourite manipulator.

When you talk about the political sophistication of the Kelantanese and the resistance to the fear-mongering of Umno and the delusion that Tok Guru was an agent of good governance, clearly you are away with the fairies.

I’m going to suggest that Kelantan will be a walkover for PAS because the Kelantanese will do as their imam tell them and because, instead of uniting the opposition, Mahathir has caused total disarray.

Add to that the fact that Umno will be concentrating on obliterating the governments of Penang and Selangor.

Mahathir, instead of uniting the opposition, has effectively split them into 10 factions. First, there are the true-blue Bersatu donkeys who think that aligning with Mahathir is the quick route to power and money.

Then each of the component parties of Pakatan Harapan will be split three ways. The first group will be those who have become totally disillusioned with the parties they once supported and will never vote for them again.

The second group are those who continue to support their party but want absolutely nothing to do with the resurrection of Mahathir. The third group are the mindless sycophants who will blindly follow their idols regardless of what they do.

End result - Harapan votes will be decimated as the choice comes down to Najib's Umno, Mahathir's ‘Umno’, PAS or don’t vote.

Reverse123: PAS offers the ‘idealised dream’ of a utopia which appeals to conservative Muslims. Without evidence it can govern, PAS has to sleep with Umno.

Mahathir may be old but is sober enough to decide that Umno under Najib is causing so much harm to the country he is willing to work with ‘enemy’ DAP with 40 years of opposition experience.

The answer is whether conservative Muslims will be convinced that Mahathir, Mohamad Sabu, Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and Anwar Ibrahim are as ‘Islamic’ as Abdul Hadi Awang. -Mkini