COMMENT The news that PAS MP for Tumpat, Kamaruddin Jaafar, and Muhammad Muhammad Taib, the former menteri besar of Selangor, who crossed over to PAS from Umno a few years ago, have joined PKR today is a development that’s surprising given that both had figured prominently in the genesis of Parti Amanah Negara (PAN).

Amanah, of course, is the offspring of Gerakan Harapan Baru (GHB), the NGO that was formed by some of the progressives of PAS who were comprehensively beaten by the conservatives in the PAS elective muktamar in June.

The defeat convinced PAS leaders who are not Quranic literalists that the gulf between them and those in the Islamic party who use an idealised version of seventh-century Medina as a model of contemporary government had become an unbridgeable chasm.

That realisation led to the formation of GHB which has issued in the formation of Amanah, scheduled to be launched on Sept 16.

Both Kamaruddin, who is a four-term MP and was secretary-general of PAS between 2004 and 2008, and Mat Taib were not averse to displaying their newfound political allegiance to Amanah, which makes their decision today to join PKR a surprise.

Why the abrupt shift when Amanah seemed their more likely moorings after both had lifted anchor from PAS?

The two were circumspect at a press conference at PKR headquarters this morning where party president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail announced their entry into PKR.

Both said they were in no way ditching Amanah, professing benign intentions towards the soon-to-be-launched PAS splinter that had seemed before today their likeliest destination.

Wan Azizah announced that Kamaruddin would be political and policy director at the office of the party president and deputy president, which is a position that says a lot and then says nothing.

PKR has already a strategic director in place, so what’s the need for a political and policy director, unless of course one concedes that in an evolving political party, grandiose designations are a thing of expediency more than a matter of content.

A natural for pivotal insider

Kamaruddin, a studious, scholarly type endowed with the discretion that makes him a natural for the role of pivotal insider, has long been associated with Anwar Ibrahim.

When sections of the Islamic party began to be uneasy with the thought that there were ‘Anwaristas’ (the term for Anwar sympathisers) in their midst, Kamaruddin avoided being unduly tarred with that brush, simply from the staunchness of the discretion he displayed.

He had joined PAS from Umno in 1999 and became secretary-general for four years from 2004 when Abdul Hadi Awang was already installed as president.

Unlike his predecessor as PAS chief, Fadzil Noor ( photo ), Hadi was never enamoured with Anwar and so Kamaruddin’s appointment as sec-gen two years after Fadzil - who had a fondness for Anwar that transcended mere party affiliation - had passed away was a triumph of vaunted ability over untoward association.

But as the division in PAS between the the conservatives and progressives - who were tarred as ‘Anwaristas’ - became more and more stark, Kamaruddin’s position, in spite of his staunch discretion, came under duress.

The abject defeat of the progressives in PAS’ internal polls in June was only the delayed manifestation of a loathing of progressives by conservatives that long been there in the party but could only surface after the death in February this year of legendary spiritual leader Nik Aziz Nik Mat, whose subtle alternation between orthodoxy and flexibility had kept both sides together.

Once the man was gone, the divisions hit the ceiling, sundering the party.

Now the progressives, in the main, have migrated fro PAS to GHB and Amanah and, judging from Kamaruddin’s and Mat Taib’s preferences, some would enlist with PKR.

It is not inconceivable that more of those seemingly bound for Amanah will tack to the left, to PKR, because of the efficacy of the PAS propaganda that Amanah is DAP’s surrogate.

That is a damaging association, logical refuge from which would be the enlistment with PKR of politicians of non-literal Islamist orientation.

Come to think of it, having left PAS, Kamaruddin’s and Mat Taib’s detour to PKR from Amanah should pave the way for more Amanah-bound members to tack towards the same destination.

This could well bring about a merging of PKR with Amanah.

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.