Najib-Hadi pact not yet a done deal

Voters may not be amused if their 2013 choice gets transformed into support for something else without their consent.

COMMENT

Prime Minister Najib’s new found cordiality with PAS President Abdul Hadi Awang may be exactly what he wants Umno to refocus on as a diversion from the infighting that is tearing the party apart. The 1MDB and RM2.6 billion headaches, which have caused Umno’s infighting, are not easing despite Najib’s best palliative medicine.

All the signs are that the briefings and talks given at the recent Umno general assembly resulted in a mixed bag. The dissent was not quelled completely as bothersome branch leaders continue to pop up here and there to express their displeasure with the current leadership.

The Al Azhar Alumni meeting on December 17 was as good a place as any to consecrate and unveil the bridge being built to link Umno and PAS. As architects of this new initiative, Najib and Hadi must have considered the time needed for PAS and Umno to react and acclimate to this shift.

The party sceptics would have to be convinced or neutralised before party election machineries can be coordinated or spoken for. Most important for Najib and Hadi, they would need time to hard sell their parties into accepting the new political paradigm which would put everyone on unfamiliar ground. Grassroots loyalties nurtured over the decades may be upset or destabilised by this change.

We are about halfway through the 2013 mandate and the coaches need to identify the players making the team before slipping into campaign mode. GE14 is widely expected to take place some time in early 2018.

PAS suspicions

PAS members still trying to recover from their split-up with the progressives won’t forget the difficulties brought on by the factional feuding between the ulamas and the progressives. The betrayals and the shifting of loyalties from brother leader to brother leader is something they would not wish to reprise so quickly. This headlong rush into the embrace of the former enemy, on the whim of the president, may not go down well with the grassroots members.

Hadi and Najib may be able to adjust well to the new arrangement, but not so easily might the common folk on either side. The question of why something that was haram for so long becoming halal all of a sudden must be foremost in their minds.

It would take time for this cordial initiative between the leaders to translate into concrete cooperation on the ground. Neither leader is currently at his best. The two party presidents may feel that it is a fait accompli, but the reality is that it far from a done deal, as evidenced by PAS VP Idris Ahmad joining Deputy President Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man in asking Najib to go on leave pending the investigations into the two scandals he is associated with. Idris even went a step further by asking those who would work with Najib and Umno to leave the party.

Undoubtedly, Hadi must see this as the best and only route to get his hudud bill heard and passed in Parliament. But will Najib’s baggage from the scandals of 1MDB and the RM2.6 billion donation prove too heavy for the run-of-the-mill PAS supporters to float, considering they were never in line as beneficiaries anyway?

Already considered hangers on, the peninsular BN component partners may find themselves in an even more precarious position than they are already in if the fusion of Umno and PAS comes to fruition. The form which this cooperation will take has yet to be spelt out and this will determine how Umno’s BN partners will ultimately react. Expect more friction from this angle as MCA’s Liow Tiong Lai has made quite clear MCA’s opposition to any hudud agenda.

The whiff of this onion gave it away long before it was served up on a plate but it will now be easier to observe as the layers get peeled away in the daylight. Some form of cooperation seems inevitable given the determination of the two party presidents to make it so. But how much of a boon can this new arrangement be to PAS when so many in the Umno family proper cannot even agree whether Najib should remain the chief?

This paradigm shift could have changed completely the way Malaysian politics is viewed and turned conventional BN coalition thinking on its head. But because Najib and Hadi are attempting this from weakness rather than from strength, it is being viewed simply as antics by senior politicians trying to stay relevant.

Are they surging ahead and leaving the rakyat behind? One should not underestimate the simple will of the rakyat when it comes to the bread and butter issues negatively affecting their lives. Already incensed by the rising cost of living, voters will not be amused if their 2013 choice at the polls gets transformed into support for something else without their consent. Will Hadi and Najib just be letting go of the birds already in their hands to go after the one in the bush?