If the events at the PAS Muktamar is used as benchmark, it doesn't look the month of nameless “loose coalition” that Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin had announced to oppose last month will live for very long.
For context, a dozen parties outside the government bloc agreed to form a loose coalition to hold the current administration accountable and to highlight issues they claim Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has failed to deliver on.
The parties that are a part of this “Dirty Dozen” include the conservative Islamic party PAS, multiracial party Gerakan and two other Indian based parties led by P Ramasamy and P Waytha Moorthy.
When I first heard this “dirty dozen ” was planning to work together to take on Anwar’s unity government, I couldn’t help but laugh. Given their track record and their personalities, it seems infinitely more likely that they will end up challenging each other rather than challenging Anwar.
And if you think I’m being harsh, just listen to what a senior PAS leader had to say about Waytha Moorthy and Rama at the party’s Muktamar.
Ahmad Yahaya, chief of PAS’s ulama council, made it very clear that PAS has not forged any formal ties with the two Indian-based parties. He was responding to accusations that PAS had betrayed its principles by working with Waytha’s Malaysian Advancement Party and Ramasamy’s Urimai.
“It is not an electoral pact or a permanent alliance,” Ahmad explained. “It’s just a loose coalition to talk about issues like cost of living. It doesn’t come between PAS and PN. Claims of us betraying our principles are just what our rivals are saying.”
In other words, PAS is indicating that if it invited Waytha and Rama inside the house, sat them at the table and broke bread with them, that would be a betrayal of principles. But since they’re just handing Waytha and Rama a packet drink at the front door, with the expectation that Waytha and Rama will take the packet drink, be grateful and leave, their pact with Waytha and Rama doesn’t mean anything—it’s just an “outside the house” transactional engagement after all.
Another PAS leader demanded that that the Gerakan chief, Dominic Lau, be replaced from leading the PN chapter of Penang.
In his speech at the PAS muktamar, Penang PAS ulama election committee head Shafirul Rozani likened the opposition in Penang to a Ferrari that could not be driven anywhere as the “steering wheel is in the hands of another person”.
“If the chairperson does not know how to drive a car despite it being a new car, perhaps it’s better for us to change the chairperson,” he added, to indicate his dissatisfaction with the leadership of Lau.
In response, Gerakan Youth has accused a PAS leader of “crossing the line” and labelled Shafirul's remarks as destructive and slanderous.
“Anyone who disrespects Gerakan’s leadership will not be treated with courtesy. Every party has its limits, and Shafirul has crossed the line,” Tan said in a statement.
Tensions between PAS and Gerakan, by the way, is not something new. In, 2023 when Lau was nominated for a state assembly seat in Penang, several state PAS leaders protested.
Lau was also ordered by a PAS leader to leave a ceramah, after he showed up uninvited.
In the past two years, Top Gerakan and PAS leaders have also been at loggerheads over a variety of issues, including the involvement of breweries in raising funds for Chinese-medium schools.
When I read about what the leaders of the “dirty dozen” think about each other at the onset itself, when they haven't even done anything yet, I can't help but be amused by how they had presumed that they could work together and win to challenge Anwar's unity government.
Them thinking that they could do it is akin to me thinking that me thinking that I and my ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend, could work together and KO Floyd Mayweather and Khabib Nurmagomedov and islam Makhachev - even before we challenge Khabib and Islam, we are likely going to fight amongst ourselves, and even if don't fight amongst ourselves, the chances of us being able to take on Khabib and Islam is also very very very low.
The very fact that this ragtag crew were even thinking of cooperating shows one of two things: either their circumstances has deteriorated to the point that they have become quite desperate, or Anwar’s strength has grown to the point that they have to cooperate with each other, even if they are loath to, because they are all aware that individually, none of them are capable of challenging Anwar.
After GE15, PAS and Bersatu alone were strong enough to take on Anwar’s unity government. Today, that they feel they need the assistance of half a dozen smaller parties—many of which can barely stand each other—should tell us of just just how much the “green wave” has subsided over the last three years.
Looking at PAS’s remarks about Waytha and Rama—even before anything has happened—I can’t help but feel Michael Jeyakumar of PSM was not only principled but farsighted when he refused to join this coalition. He made it clear that PSM cannot, on principle, be involved in a grouping where so many parties play the ethnic card and he probably had been in politics for long enough to realise that the dirty dozen will likely fight each other before they fight Anwar, and decided to spare himself the misery of being a part of something that was sure to fail.
Ramasamy, of course, responded to Michael's decision, with his usual meandering explanation about how being concerned about race doesn’t actually mean you’re concerned about race, but given PAS’s blunt words—that even sharing bread with him would be an affront to their principles—it’s obvious what Ramasamy really meant but couldn’t bring himself to say.
That the existence of the loose coalition only rests on three shaky foundations:
- For some reason, they’re all deeply upset with Anwar.
- They need to be seen doing something, even if they have no idea what that something is.
The arrangement isn’t to combine their strength—it’s to disguise just how weak they all really are.
Considering they are so wary of each other that they have to start distancing themselves even before they have agreed on anything, let alone done anything, I will bet 1 ringgit and 30 cents that the episode where they will infuriate each other, and walk away in disgust, is probably just two or three months ahead.
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