Why Amanah doesn’t appeal to rural Malays

A USM professor says the party's Islamist brand is out of sync with the view that Islam is a Malay religion.

USM professor Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid says Amanah is stronger than PAS in multiracial areas but struggles in rural Malay locations. (Bernama pic)

PETALING JAYA: Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) failure to beat PAS in its strongholds in the recent election indicates that Amanah’s brand of Islamist politics has little traction with rural Malays, according to a political scientist.

Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid, a professor at Universiti Sains Malaysia, told FMT he believed it was hard for Amanah to make inroads into Malay heartlands because its message didn’t fit into the context in which Islam is viewed strictly as a Malay religion.

USM professor Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid.

He noted that Amanah’s agenda was to present Islam the way the Quran describes it – as a “mercy to mankind”.

“But as long as Malayness and Islam are closely tied to each other, Amanah must find another way to make inroads into the Malay heartlands,” he said.

He acknowledged that Amanah was stronger than PAS in multiracial areas and places where middle-class Malays predominate, but he questioned whether this served its true purpose as a coalition partner.

To remain relevant as an Islamic political party in Malaysia, he added, Amanah had no choice but to make a deeper impact in rural Malay areas.

“In the Malay belt areas like Kelantan, Terengganu and even Kedah, PAS did better as a party than any of the Pakatan Harapan parties,” he said. “The Amanah setup has no appeal where there is a Malay hegemony.”

Nevertheless, he added, all was not lost in Amanah’s case. “It can work through the grassroots gradually through people like Husam Musa and Nik Omar Aziz.” -FMT