‘SPOILER’ PAS GOES FULL CIRCLE: TO HADI & CO, ‘KING’ NAJIB IS NOW MALAYSIA’S ‘TRULY GREAT ISLAMIC’ LEADER: JOURNEY FROM MOSQUITO PARTY TO UMNO STOOGE

IN politics there are a lot of things, and people, we have to contend with. Among them are those who like to see themselves as kingmakers, although in reality some of them are merely spoilers.

A number of dictionaries define “kingmaker” as:

A person who influences the choice of people for powerful positions within an organisation (Cambridge);

• A person who brings leaders to power through the exercise of political influence (Oxford);
• A kingmaker is a person or group who has control over which people are chosen for positions of authority, for example, in an election.

A spoiler, on the other hand, is:

• One (such as a political candidate) having little or no chance of winning but capable of depriving a rival of success (Merriam-Webster);
• A person who obstructs or prevents an opponent’s success while having no chance of winning a contest themselves (Oxford).

PAS sees itself as a kingmaker. It is confident of its strength. Its leaders don’t seem to think they need to be in any coalition.

A couple of weeks ago, PAS information chief Nasrudin Hassan was quoted as saying that the party would contest more than 100 Parliamentary seats, confident it could win at least 40 seats in the coming general election.

Brave and daring, indeed. But why would someone who wants to win only 40 seats put up 100 candidates? Why target 40%? Why not 50% or 60%, or at least 70%? But then again, it could be a brilliant plan that will surprise us later.

Malaysia has 222 Parliamentary seats. Any party or coalition needs at least 112 seats to form the government.

In the 2013 election, PAS put 73 Parliamentary candidates but won only 21 seats. After an internal split, some PAS MPs left to form Parti Amanah Negara. PAS is now left with 14 seats.

With such an ambitious plan, especially after the breakup of Pakatan Rakyat in 2015, and the fact that PAS is becoming more intimate with Prime Minister Najib Razak’s Umno-Barisan Nasional, PAS has warned the Opposition to stay out of its traditional seats.

To PAS, the right to traditional seats means it can contest in areas held or claimed by other parties, including PKR, because those seats were said to be theirs in the first place.

“Our friends in Pakatan Harapan should heed this call if their main focus is to defeat Umno and Barisan Nasional instead of meddling with what belongs to us,” PAS Deputy President Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man was quoted as saying by The Star last month.

It doesn’t stop there. Earlier in April, its vice president Idris Ahmad expressed the desire to contest in almost all seats in the Federal Territories; at least nine out of 13 Parliamentary seats.

This means PAS would put candidates in constituencies now held by PKR, DAP and BN, except the DAP strongholds of Bukit Bintang, Seputeh, Kepong, and Cheras.

PAS did not win any seats in the Federal Territories in the last general election. It won Titiwangsa in 2008 but failed to retain it. It never won Putrajaya, and it lost deposit in Labuan in a three-cornered fight with PKR against BN.

Love him or hate him, Dr Mahathir Mohamad has this to say: if PAS insisted in going alone in the coming election, it will erode the support for Pakatan Harapan as well as for PAS itself.

“Pakatan and PAS will lose, and Barisan will win. This is actually PAS’ goal. It is not for race or religion. It only aims to weaken the Malays,” he said in his blog last week.

Earlier, Mahathir had said that PAS won only one seat when it contested alone (in 1986), but managed to win 27 seats as part of a coalition with the DAP (in 1999 as Barisan Alternatif).

When the opposition broke up, PAS only managed to retain 7 seats in 2004. It bounced back in 2008 with 23 seats in an electoral pact that, again, included DAP.

Would PAS supporters continue to vote for PAS, and therefore split the vote to ensure BN’s victory? Some of us are worried; some of us don’t care anymore.

Or, perhaps PAS supporters have made peace with themselves to accept Najib as the truly great Islamic leader. Whether PAS is a kingmaker or a spoiler, our nation awaits its fate.

– https://www.themalaysianinsight.com