Analyst: PAS’ defeat in GE14 nothing to do with social media

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PETALING JAYA: A political scientist has panned PAS’ explanation of its defeat in the May 9 polls, saying its perceived alliance with Umno was to blame, not poor social media management.

Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid of Universiti Sains Malaysia said public perception that PAS was working with Umno had shaken the people’s confidence in the Islamist party.

“PAS’ weakness is that it does not have a firm stance in defining its identity. It seemed as though the party was cooperating with Umno, which had suffered from scandals, corruption and so on.

“This perception is not new. It was around even before the election,” he told FMT.

At first, he said, PAS leaders had denied such talk and labelled it as rumour. Now, however, the inter-party cooperation had become public knowledge.

PAS recently blamed poor management of social media for its defeat in the 14th general election.

Its president Abdul Hadi Awang said this was the conclusion of a post-mortem on the party’s performance in the election which took into account multiple views including those of academics, community leaders and thinkers from within and outside the country.

Fauzi acknowledged that social media played a role in influencing the interest of people, especially the youth.

In PAS’ case, however, he said the Islamist party needed to be more firm in its stance and project a clear identity in order to convince voters.

“I doubt that just focusing on social media will give PAS victory in the next general election,” he said.

“There is also the question of how it will do away with corruption, which PAS should be addressing as an Islamist party.

“Instead, it wants to cooperate with Umno which was already linked to scandals and corruption. People expect more from PAS as an Islamist party.”

He added that PAS appeared to have become a regional party as it had managed to woo voters in the east coast but not the west. - FMT