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By Mihar Dias August 2025
If you were hoping for political drama in PAS, think again.
The so-called “party elections” have once again proved to be less about renewal and more about ritual.
Tan Sri Abdul Hadi Awang and his ever-loyal deputy Datuk Seri Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man remain firmly seated at the top — not because they fought off challengers, but because no one even bothered to try. https://newswav.com/A2508_NN84U9?s=A_2NfOtn4&language=en
It’s not just PAS. UMNO, PKR, and pretty much every other “major” party in Malaysia seem to have developed a political culture where leadership is not contested, but embalmed.
Presidents stay in office so long they might as well be declared permanent fixtures, like portraits on the wall of the party HQ. Deputy presidents? Eternal understudies who never quite get their turn on stage.
Delegates will clap, chant, and declare democracy alive and well, all while dutifully avoiding the very act that defines democracy: competition.
Challenges are seen as disloyal, fresh faces as risky, and change as a Western disease. Better to recycle the same old names than to admit the obvious — that the party has no plan beyond keeping its leaders alive long enough to avoid the hassle of finding replacements.
In PAS, Hadi’s health has been whispered about for years, but the whispers die down the moment he coughs and still manages to make a fiery speech.
In UMNO, presidents resign only after electoral humiliation — and even then, the successors are usually recycled warlords from the same old guard.
PKR once claimed to be different, but its leadership transitions now look more like family inheritance than party democracy.
The irony is that these “no-contest” elections are always dressed up as unity. Leaders claim it prevents division, preserves strength, and shows solidarity.
But unity without choice is not strength — it’s stagnation. It’s the political equivalent of drinking teh tarik without sugar: technically the same thing, but nobody’s going to enjoy it.
So next month, PAS will gather, clap politely, and re-elect its leaders by not electing them at all.
The delegates will pat themselves on the back for another smooth congress, while the rest of us watch and wonder how many more decades Malaysia’s political parties will keep mistaking paralysis for stability.
After all, why risk the future when you can cling to the past?
Mihar Dias (mihardias@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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