COMMENT Now that the division within PAS is out in the open and a battle between its progressives and conservatives at the party’s muktamar in June is all but inevitable, early exchanges indicate this contest possesses echoes of a similar battle in Umno 28 years ago.

No doubt, the PAS faithful resent any comparison to Umno, particularly if this implies a role for money politics in the party’s electoral process.

The leaders and electorate of PAS are said to shun money politics, viewing the scourge as  Umno’s besetting vice.   

This reference to the pivotal battle in Umno of nearly three decades ago is for the purpose of highlighting a feature of that contest that is manifest in the opening exchanges of the ongoing tussle in PAS.  

That 1987 Umno battle was also between two distinct factions; it would not be inaccurate to say that one side was right-of-centre and the other, left-of-centre.

Insofar as each side had an ideology - a predisposition would be the more fitting description - the then rightists in Umno would approximate the current conservatives of PAS and the leftists would equate the progressives.  

The press decided to label the ‘rightists’ Team A and the ‘leftists’ Team B.    

What was striking about the Umno battle was the evident clarity of the divide: adherents of each side fell neatly into the camps - their was no room for the ambivalent.

Of course, self-interest stemming from a desire to preserve ministerial position or politically controlled corporate plums - and just not predisposition - factored in individuals’ choice of Team A or B.

But there were those who held these positions and still chose to be with the side that suited their predisposition, not just their career or economic interest.

In that sense, the April 1987 contest in Umno was not just of huge significance, with reverberations from the outcome felt till this day, but it also sported an arresting feature which did much to sustain the conviction that when a contest becomes inevitable, it’s best to stage it in a manner that allows a watchful public to see what the brouhaha is all about.

This arresting feature of the Umno contest was that it provided rivals an opportunity to project their clashing viewpoints.

At that time the internet was a glimmer on the horizon, so the public could only follow the contest through the print and electronic media, unlike these days when the seemingly independent web news portals more than make up for the bias and the slack in coverage of alternative views in the mainstream media.

By the 1980s, all media outlets were state-owned or owned by corporate groups allied to components of the ruling BN, of which Umno was the dominant component.  

Keeping abreast of developments

It was fortunate for Team B that the MCA-owned The Star newspaper was fast growing in circulation and provided stiff competition to the largest selling English daily, New Straits Times.

Team B’s views found a ready outlet in The Star which meant that watchful observers of the contest in Umno had to read both dailies to keep abreast of developments.

The NST, though staunch in backing Team A, did not exactly blank out coverage of Team B.

It provided coverage but its preference for Team A could not be hidden. The Star gave equal coverage to both sides.

That made the 1987 battle in Umno a riveting demonstration of the value of having alternative media outlets.        

Now that the first salvos have been fired in the battle between conservatives and progressives in PAS, ahead of the party’s elective congress in June, both sides are off and running, with the projection of their conflicting views enjoying ready circulation.

The Internet has been a boon for this projection with no dearth of availability of portals for the airing of each side’s opinions.

No sooner than that one side has a critique of the other out on the net, the riposte from the other faction wings its way to take issue with it.

Accordingly, the public has been duly apprised that a national gathering of PAS-leaning ulama in Serdang on Saturday was verbally nasty towards the progressive faction of the party.

How do we know?

Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad, director of the party’s research centre, quickly rose in disdain at the name-calling that reportedly took place at the ulama assembly and said that he disrespected ulama who resorted to denigrating others.

No sooner had Takiyuddin Hassan (right), PAS MP for Kota Baru, criticised Gobind Singh, DAP MP for Puching, for being arrogant in demanding that PAS leave Pakatan for insisting on hudud, then the party’s youth chief in his constituency faulted Takiyuddin for a lack of collegial spirit towards a component member of Pakatan.

It’s not quite clear on which side of the progressive/conservative divide Takiyudin falls, but that cannot said about Rosli Allani Abdul Kadir, the youth leader who remonstrated with him over the attack on Gobind.

Essentially, the PAS progressives are in favour of sticking with Pakatan while the conservatives, though reluctant to part with the opposition coalition, are uncomfortable with it.

The latter’s theocratic inclinations rub coalition partners, DAP, and to a lesser extent, PKR, the wrong way.

In the weeks leading up to the party’s polls in June, the divide in PAS will be publicised through opinion-making and refutation, criticism and rebuttal, claim and counter-claim, that will be aired by protagonists of each camp, a good demonstration of democratic party politics at work.

From following the arguments, the PAS electorate will make their choice with an informed way and the public can root for the side that to them makes the most sense.

This ought to be unlike Umno which after the 1987 battle opted for long periods of no contests for the top two positions in the party.

The upshot: destabilising repudiations of one or the other of their choices (Anwar Ibrahim as deputy president in 1998, and Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as president in 2009) from rather bizarre and abrupt discoveries of alleged unsuitability or incompetence.

Party contests, open and clarified, are insurance against such tremors.


TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for more than four decades. A sobering discovery has been that those who protest the loudest tend to replicate the faults they revile in others.