COMMENT The disbanding of Pakatan Rakyat on June 16, 2015, after the DAP declared it could no longer work with PAS is a sad day for all Malaysians who have hoped for a viable alternative to the Barisan Nasional.

The DAP is now willing and able to work with the man who has been responsible for privatising practically all of Malaysian industry and destroying whatever semblance of democracy we had in his 22 years in office… all because of the need to “save Malaysia”.

We used to have to be saved from Dr Mahathir Mohamad. Now we need to ally with Mahathir to save Malaysia? Some answers need to be provided by the DAP leadership to these questions:

  • Where is the political economic analysis to justify this new strategy for the democratic forces in this country?
  • Is the “new enemy” of the Malaysian people Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak or is it the PAS Islamic state?
  • Who else, besides Mahathir, have been identified as the saviours of Malaysia?
  • Which part of Umno has suddenly become democratic and “with the people”?
  • Is Najib the sole oppressor of the people?
  • Is the DAP announcing the end of class oppression in Malaysia behind this new call to “save Malaysia”?
  • Are we at war with another country?
For the sake of the young Malaysian activists, it is worth reviewing this history of the Opposition’s engagement with PAS.

PAS is perhaps the largest party outside Malaysia's ruling BN coalition. From its establishment in 1951, it fused Islamist and Malay nationalist ideologies and entrenched itself as one of the country's strongest opposition parties.

Except for a short period, from 1974 to 1978 when PAS joined the governing BN coalition, the party has otherwise been in opposition at the federal level for the entirety of its history.

PAS's electoral base is in Malaysia's rural and conservative north, although in recent years it has been attracting the urban middle class as well.

The party has governed the northern state of Kelantan since 1990 and has also, in the past, formed governments in Kedah and Terengganu. The party currently holds 21 of the 222 seats in Parliament and has elected state assembly members in 10 of the country's 13 states.

Present imperfect stance of PAS

The 1980s saw the party's ideological shift away from Malay nationalism towards a puritanical brand of Islamism. It had all along held a commitment to the ideology of an Islamic State.

On Oct 10, 1985, I wrote an article in The Star , titled: ‘PAS’ present perfect stance’. It was on an important policy speech by then PAS vice-president Abdul Hadi Awang, who had declared that:

“The question of privileges for the Malays will not arise under Islamic law.”

It immediately evoked the predictable response from Umno that PAS was “traitorous to the religion, race and country… selling out the birthright of the Malays.”

Then prime minister Mahathir said the attorney-general would have to determine if the speech was seditious. Even the home minister indicated that his ministry was studying the speech.

Not only was the Sedition Act invoked, some quarters maintained that Hadi’s speech was tantamount to treason. The only voice of reason emanated from the former prime minister, Hussein Onn ( photo ), who said:

“The Sedition Act should not be invoked too easily just because people express views which do not conform with established views… the authorities should not stretch the provision of the law to make every nonconformist statement seditious or the law itself would fall into disrepute. There is the political aspect which involves the rights of the people to express their views. If it is blatant, one has to be careful in invoking the Act as it involves the freedom of speech.” ( The Star , Sept 20, 1985)

So what has changed?

Without a doubt, PAS’ policy statement on equality of all peoples before Allah was a game changer. At a stroke, PAS had undermined the communalist ideology of Umno, which had dominated the Malay community for so long.

The contrast with Mahathir’s call to Umno members at the time to “defend their special rights by holding fast to the spirit of nationalism” could not be starker.

Seeing an opportunity to engage with the leaders of such a large Malay-based party and to combat the racist ideology of Umno, it was not the DAP but the leaders in the Civil Rights Committee (CRC) of the Chinese Associations who initiated a dialogue with the PAS leaders in 1985.

During the 1986 general election campaign, leaders of the CRC went round the country calling on the Chinese electorate to vote for the opposition, including PAS.

In the 1990 general election, the DAP forged a successful coalition with Semangat 46 and PRM under ‘Gagasan Rakyat’ while S46 had, in turn, forged another coalition with PAS under ‘Angkatan Perpaduan Ummah’.

While the opposition failed to defeat the BN, the attitude of Malay voters toward the DAP had changed positively because of its alliance with S46, PRM and indirectly, PAS too. In fact, the realisation of this Opposition Front and the hope of a multiracial challenge to the BN had been the main reason for the entry of civil rights activists, including myself, into the DAP in the first place.

DAP’s schizophrenia over PAS

During my association with the DAP between 1990 and 1995, I observed their schizophrenic attitude toward PAS, continually shifting between their adherence to “multi-ethnicity” and “gaining the Chinese ground”. The debates within the party leadership over relations with PAS and Gagasan Rakyat revealed this mindset of the DAP leaders.

Events following the 1990 general election, especially the poor showing by S46, led predictably to the DAP leadership reappraising their relationship with Gagasan Rakyat.

Thus, while S46’s other alliance with PAS had not posed a problem during the 1990 general election, by the time of the 1995 general election, the DAP leaders started having second thoughts about any link at all with PAS, claiming that their “Chinese ground” had been shaken.

Nevertheless, we argued that BN was still our main enemy and any policy or tactical adjustment should not detract from the task of weakening the BN through the six-point objectives of Gagasan Rakyat, namely:

  • To uphold the Federal Constitution;
  • To uphold democracy and human rights;
  • To uphold justice and the independence of the judiciary;
  • Defend the socio-economic rights of the people;
  • Oppose atrocities, corruption and abuse of power; and
  • Strive for inter-ethnic harmony.
This did not stop the schizophrenic attitude of DAP leaders over engagement with PAS. During the subsequent leadership conference, a prominent DAP leader (who rose and rose irresistibly in the party leadership ranks) actually stood up to declare that, in his view, “PAS is our main political enemy!”

He was visibly getting a load off his chest after hearing our appeals to be clear in our minds as to who was our main political enemy.

Consequently, DAP decided to pull out of Gagasan Rakyat in 1995, apparently because it did not want to have a tainted association with PAS, which had not posed a problem in 1990.

DAP with PAS in Barisan Alternatif

The impetus for the formation of Barisan Alternatif was the Reformasi movement after the 1998 arrest and subsequent conviction of former Umno deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim. The Reformasi movement had set new political forces into play and on Oct 24, 1999, PAS, DAP and Parti Keadilan formed an electoral alliance and issued a joint manifesto.

In the 1999 general election, Barisan Alternatif cooperated to contest only one candidate in each constituency. PAS retained Kelantan and captured Terengganu and increased its parliamentary seats from seven to 27.

DAP increased its share from seven to 10 - but with two of its most prominent leaders, Lim Kit Siang and Karpal Singh ( photo ) - losing their constituencies. This disappointing performance for DAP was again blamed on the DAP’s alliance with PAS. Keadilan took only five seats while BN retained a 77 percent absolute majority, with 148 of 193 parliamentary seats.

With the disappointing results in the 1999 general election, DAP once again began to review its alliance with PAS and shortly after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York by Islamists, the DAP announced its withdrawal from the Barisan Alternatif, on Sept 21, 2001.

The split led to infighting among the opposition parties in the 2004 general election, resulting in many seats having multiple contestants. Nevertheless, it was a lesson learnt by the Opposition and by the 2008 general election, the main opposition parties realigned themselves to avoid three-corner contests in the election.

On April 1, 2008, the leaders of PKR, DAP and PAS announced the new official alliance of Pakatan Rakyat and it led to the political tsunami in the 12th Malaysian general election. Together, the three parties won 89 of the 222 parliamentary seats, its biggest electoral victory yet.

DAP with PAS in Pakatan Rakyat

After the political tsunami of 2008, DAP did not have any problem being in the same coalition with PAS and PKR after the overwhelming verdict by the Malaysian electorate in GE12. During GE13 in 2013, there is a video in which the DAP secretary-general accepted PAS’ own commitment to the Islamic State while abiding by the common platform of Pakatan.

Why and when did the latest fallout between DAP and PAS start? Did it predate the asinine ‘Kajang Move’ when we saw the former Selangor menteri besar Abdul Khalid Ibrahim being openly maligned by lesser DAP leaders for being inept and corrupt as the justification for his ousting?

Was PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang ( photo ) consulted on this bizarre political move? The Kajang Move showed not only contempt for the voters in Kajang but also insensitivity toward the PAS leadership, which was part of the Pakatan coalition.

What Malaysians saw during the 2014 Selangor Menteri Besar controversy was the contempt shown toward the PAS president, not only in not being consulted from the start about the former MB’s alleged misconduct and the consequent “Kajang Move”, but also in setting DAP’s Rottweilers on the PAS president.

There was clearly a dearth of leadership in Pakatan Rakyat that allowed such impudence by lesser party leaders to publicly bark at the president of a component party in the Pakatan coalition.

Before long, the DAP top leaders entered the fray, with the DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng calling the PAS president Hadi “mad”, among other things, in the ongoing spat between the two Pakatan parties. The coalition was formally declared disbanded by the DAP on June 16, 2015, citing its inability to work with PAS.

New Hope for the Opposition Coalition?

It is certainly a sad day for Malaysians who have hoped for an alternative to the BN and have carefully nurtured a working relationship with PAS since the Eighties to see this Alternative Coalition wrecked by total lack of sensitivity to coalition principles, human relationships and dearth of leadership.

The DAP leadership is banking on their token Malay members and the former PAS “New Hopers” to get by. No doubt the DAP will continue to rule Penang but succeeding to drive PAS out of Pakatan is undoing more than 30 years of work engaging with PAS to build the Alternative Coalition.

DR KUA KIA SOONG is adviser to Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram).