Listening to PAS talk often reminds me of either a typical Tamil movie hero or a passenger-seat driver.
In a typical masala Tamil movie, the hero is usually portrayed as someone who never wanted to be a leader. He is perfectly content listening to his parents, spending time with his friends, and living an ordinary life. Then the villain appears, threatens his family, his friends or the woman he loves, and suddenly he is "forced" to become the hero. He doesn't seek leadership—it is supposedly thrust upon him because he has no other choice.
Listening to PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang today gave me exactly the same vibes.
According to Hadi, PAS did not want to cooperate with Umno. It was forced to do so in order to "save" the Malays and Muslims from the "extremely secular" DAP, together with PKR and Amanah's supposedly liberal Islamic ideology.
"This situation necessitated a move to unite the Malays together with 'non-extreme' non-Malays," Hadi claimed in a facebook post.
See what I mean?
This is PAS's problem. It can never simply admit what it wants. Instead, it always has to come up with a thousand reasons why it was "forced" to pursue what it wanted all along.
If you believe PAS, you would think that power, authority, status and political office are not desirable in themselves. It is only ordinary people that want those things for their own sake. PAS, however, are divinely inspired people - obviously, being so "divinely" inspired, they have no need for such "worldy" temptations - if they want these things at all , it is only because they wish to "save" the Muslims and do God's work.
It is precisely this inability to admit what it wants that prevents not only the people, but PAS itself, from seeing itself as a genuine leader.
A leader cannot be ashamed of their own ambition.
A leader should be able to openly say that they want victory, power, influence and glory, and convince people that they are capable of achieving them. People follow leaders because they believe that, if the leader succeeds, they too will be able to be a part of the success.
But if, like PAS, you refuse to admit that you want power, and instead insist that you merely seek it to "save" everyone else, then you will constantly need someone to save people from.
That is why PAS always seems to need an enemy.
This is what many people fear about PAS—and I don't just mean non-Muslims. Many Muslims fear it as well.
If your entire political justification is that you must "save" society, then you will always find a villain to save society from.
Today you might say you need to save the muslims from the Secular DAP and liberal PKR, but as sure as night follows day, someday you will decide that Muslims need saving even from other Muslims itself.
As a matter of fact, PAS actually has done this - it has gone to the extent of claiming that society needs to be saved from itself or Muslims needs to be saved from other Muslims, just because it wants to remain on top.
PAS's inability to honestly admit that it desires power, victory, prestige and influence—like other political party—means that it continually needs to manufacture crises and enemies to justify its own rise.
The same mentality also explains why PAS repeatedly struggles to maintain long-term political alliances.
It has fallen out with PKR.
It has fallen out with DAP.
It has fallen out with Umno.
And now it has fallen out with Bersatu.
PAS may point out that it has always been willing to make sacrifices and let its allies occupy positions such as Prime Minister or Menteri Besar instead of insisting on them for itself, but because it cannot honestly admit that it wants those positions, it has never be genuine in making these sacrifices.
It gives the steering wheel away, but it keeps trying to control the car.
PAS. in other word, has a reputation of behaving like a passenger-seat driver.
Officially, it might let someone else drive the car, but PAS keeps telling them when to brake, when to turn, how fast to go, and where to stop.
Eventually, the driver becomes tired of being second-guessed and throws the passenger out of the car.
That, in many ways, describes PAS's political history.
If PAS wants to escape the cycle of being embraced only when its allies are desperate, and abandoned once they regain their footing, then perhaps it should begin by being more honest with itself.
Stop pretending that every political decision is made reluctantly to save everyone else.
Simply admit what every political party already knows—that power, victory, influence and leadership are things worth pursuing in themselves.
Then explain to the people why they should want PAS to possess that power, and what they stand to gain if it succeeds.
That would be a far more convincing argument than constantly insisting that the people needs to be rescued even from themselves.
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