Pas President Hadi Awang struck again earlier this week. This time he came out to say that non-muslims must be grateful to be allowed to live in Malaysia. His hints did not escape notice. He was implying that the non-Muslims do not have the inherent right of a citizen to belong in Malaysia.
Hadi has been very on a roll recently. He has been coming out with one zinger after another, almost on a weekly basis. Not too long ago, he claimed that the
Malays were being “openly conned” and that non-Malays and non-Muslims were the
“biggest plunderers”. Not satisfied with that, he then openly threatened the
safety of the non-Muslims in the country soon after that. As the 6-state election approaches, Hadi has been going out of his way to offend the non-Malays and non-Muslims in every which way possible.
Not only Hadi, but a couple of the other pezzonovantes of PAS have also been quite busy trying to pick a quarrel with the non-Malays and non-Muslims as the 6-state election approaches.
Before Hadi went on a tangent, a Pas MP had also openly asked the health minister
to declare the LGBTQ condition as a mental illness in parliament.
Not to be left out, the Kedah MB, Muhammad Sanusi then came out with both guns
blazing and bizarrely claimed Penang for Kedah.
While the way the pezzonovantes of Pas are flying off the handle in every which direction might make them look like they are losing their minds, this might not be the
case at all.
What they are doing might seem like madness in method, but if
you scrutinise their actions more closely, I daresay that you will also see a
method in their madness.
While Sanusi and Hadi might look like it is the non-Malays and the non-Muslims
that they are training their gun on, their true target might actually be Umno.
In GE 15, BN received around 22 percent of the votes. Of these, the lion’s
share of BN’s vote came from Umno Malays.
The Umno Malays are currently lost. After all the stunts that their president Zahid Hamidi had
pulled during the General Election and UMNO election, many if not most of the
Umno Malays will likely find it difficult to be associated with Umno for so
long as Zahid Hamidi is at its helm. If they do not abstain from voting in the
upcoming state elections, a big chunk of the Umno Malays will likely vote
against Umno's candidates as a way to protest against Zahid Hamidi's
leadership.
To win over their vote, PN needs to create the perception that PH will not
uphold the rights and interests of the Malays and Muslims while Umno is too weak
and impotent to stand up to PH. It is to create this perception that Pas is
ramping up its racial and religious rhetoric against the non-Malays and
non-Muslims in the peninsular. (I specifically say in the peninsular,
because PN cannot afford to offend the non-Muslim and non-Malays in East Malaysia,
especially in Sarawak, if it wishes to conquer Putrajaya.)
By going to extremes to attack the non-Muslims and non-Malays, Pas is likely hoping to
draw an equally strong reaction from PH, especially from the Dap big guns,
which will hurt the sentiments of the Malay Muslims, just as how its own
rhetoric is hurting the sentiments of the non-Malay non-Muslims.
If the Dap big guns bite the bait, then Umno will either have to silently bear
with Dap’s counterattack on the Malay Muslims or retaliate against Dap for
hurting the sentiments of the Malay Muslims.
If Umno does the former, PN can use it to show the Malay electorate,
especially the Umno Malays, that Umno cannot be relied upon to defend the
Malays and the Muslims. If it does the latter, it will likely erode the
non-Malay and non-Muslims support for Umno’s candidates in the 6-state
elections.
Either way, PN will win at Umno’s expense.
PN is a one-trick pony. It has no economic plan, no vision for the future, no leadership of note, no international connections, no geopolitical understanding, no fresh ideas and no solutions to the pressing problem of the times. The only thing it has is the racial and religious card, and like a one-hit wonder, it intends to play its one-hit song at full volume, everywhere, ad infinitum and ad nauseum, until the 6-state election is over.
The Umno Malays are of great importance in the coming 6-state elections, not
only because they are the only uncertainty that exists in the 6-state election,
but also because their support will give either the unity government or PN the
mandate of the Malays.
Everybody who voted for PH in GE 15 will likely vote for PH again in the coming
6-state election.
Most of those who voted for PN in GE 15 will also likely vote for PN again in
the coming state election. (During GE 15, a number of Malays who
would have otherwise voted for PH or Umno, opted to vote for PN instead,
because they were afraid that if PH won again in GE 15, they would see the
return of a DAP-controlled government. Now that Anwar has clearly shown
that it is he, not DAP, that is firmly in command of the unity government,
those votes will likely return to their home base).
This will then leave only the Umno Malay votes to be up for grabs, and it is
the battle for these lost Malay votes that will determine how the upcoming 6-state
elections will be fought.
Both PH and PN desperately need the 22 percent of Umno Malay votes, because
there is an unwritten rule in Malaysia which says that the party that rules the
nation must rule in the peninsular, and to rule in the peninsular a party must
have the mandate of the Malays.
Although the majority of the Malay votes went to PN in the last general
election, this happened mostly because many Malays were determined not to have
a repeat of 2018, not because they disapproved of Anwar Ibrahim’s leadership.
Now that Anwar Ibrahim has clearly shown that the unity government he leads is
not the same as the Pakatan government that governed in 2018, the fact that PH doesn’t
currently have the majority of the Malay votes doesn’t necessarily mean that the unity government doesn’t have the mandate of the Malays.
To show that his government has the mandate of the Malays however, Anwar not
only needs PH to retain all the seats that it had won in 2018, he must also ensure
that Umno retains all the seats that it has won in 2018.
If Umno retains the same number of seats it won in 2018, PN will likely accept
its defeat in GE 15 and resign itself to be the opposition. It will forfeit its
ambition to conquer Putrajaya and retreat back to its base in the north and
east of the peninsular. Anwar is also likely to rule in Putrajaya until his
term ends.
If PN manages to wrest a sizeable number of seats from Umno, especially in
Selangor, Negeri Sembilan or Penang, or worse, if PN manages to seize either Selangor or Negeri Sembilan from PH, then PN can with confidence claim that it
is the party with the mandate of the Malays. That be the case, PN will likely
double its effort to topple the unity government by some means or another, and
Anwar might beat Ismail Sabri, to become the shortest-serving Prime Minister of
Malaysia ever.
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