[Malaysia] PAS Shake-Up

Asia Times Online
Jun 11, 2005

Much ado about Malaysian shakeup
By Ioannis Gatsiounis

KUALA LUMPUR - A major "shakeup" took place recently within the ultra-conservative Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS), when a host of liberals (by party standards at least) were voted into top posts, including that of deputy president. One newspaper said this marked "a major power shift in the party". Another hailed it as "the most dramatic leadership change that the party had seen in decades". Former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim thought the changes significant enough to countenance PAS's request that he lead an opposition coalition.

The Malaysian political scene has become synonymous with stagnation. And so any whiff of progressive alterations to its landscape is often considered noteworthy, if not by the long-ruling United Malays National Organization (UMNO), then by just about everyone else - the opposition, activists, scholars, independent news commentators and the rakyat (citizens).

Such interpretation, however, is usually predicated more on hope than substance. This was the case when Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, promising reform, took over from long-ruling strongman Mahathir Mohamad in late 2003, and when less than a year later the courts freed Anwar, Malaysia's most famous prisoner. The putative reformist has yet to inject much life into the foundering opposition.

What, then, is the substance behind the shakeup that took place last Sunday?

Clearly, PAS wants to reinvent itself. It has little choice; its survival depends on reinvention. The party learned a hard lesson when it was crushed by the UMNO-led National Front coalition in parliamentary elections last year. There have been rumblings among PAS's top brass to reform ever since. The party election results are the biggest step yet in that direction and suggest the party is opting for a more pragmatic, less dogmatic approach.

"We want to offer a new kind of strategy which includes more engagement - with NGOs [non-governmental organizations], the international community, people [in general]" Nasharudin Mat Isa, PAS's new deputy president, told Asia Times Online. "We want to open ourself to dialogue with others and understand others."

It will not be an easy task. PAS has alienated many people in multicultural Malaysia, with its narrow, quixotic interpretation of Islam. Most controversial has been its core aspiration since the party's inception in 1951: to turn Malaysia into an Islamic state. (An Islamic state grants unequal rights to Muslims and non-Muslims.)

The election results give no indication that the party is going to revise its position. The 43-year-old Nasharudin predicted that PAS's approach to the Islamic state issue, ie tone, may well change, but said the substance of that change was another matter. "Policy-wise we don't know. We'll have to look at it."

Nasharudin suggested that, alas, the Islamic state controversy has obscured the party's other platforms. "The media raises [the Islamic state issue] more than we do. If you follow the [PAS] presidential speech there was only mild mention of it."

It is in these other areas that the new leaders' presence might be felt most. "They may not insist on the primacy of certain positions - such as hudud [laws], and [a traditional] role for women," said Chandra Muzaffar, president of the International Movement for a Just World. "That would be a change. But I don't know how they will fare when put to the test on fundamental issues involving the Muslim community, such as the Islamic state, and the current controversy over needle exchange and condom distribution."

There are three main reasons for questioning how the new leaders will fare.

First, because the verdict is still out on how reform-minded the new leaders are. When, for instance, the ruling Taliban called for the demolition of ancient Buddhist statues in Afghanistan in 2001, the new batch of PAS leaders didn't decry the measure. Indeed, Nasharudin himself reportedly called for a jihad against the United States when the superpower toppled the puritanical Taliban later that year. Some insiders charge that the new leaders are astute politicians who understand how to present themselves in one light to the international community and in another to their constituency.

Second, assuming the new leaders are sincere reformists, there is still the dewan ulama (council of religious elders) to deal with. The dewan ulama approves or rejects policy proposals. It is also largely conservative.

Third, policy must be dictated by the wishes of the rakyat, and to what extent PAS's core constituency wants change is unclear. PAS's poor showing in last year's parliamentary elections did indicate that voters were not in accord with where the party was headed. (Not even the PAS leadership's claim that a vote for the party would lead to a ticket to heaven could win their votes.) But it must be kept in mind that Islam in Malaysia is characterized by a peculiar conservatism; the faithful tend to place more emphasis on ritual and less on knowledge and understanding than do those in many other parts of the
Islamic world.

"We do know our supporters want a more responsive PAS," said Nasharudin. Beyond that, he said, the verdict was still out. "Over the next three months we plan to meet and understand more from people."

It's worth noting that this is not the first time PAS has sought to reinvent itself this way. In early 2001, under the headline "PAS seeks to shed fundamentalist image", the Straits Times of Singapore reported that PAS "is expected to reinvent itself during a four-day party assembly beginning today in a bid to spruce up its image after years of living under the label of religious fundamentalism". Obviously that bid didn't fare too well, or the party would not be back at square one now.

Nasharudin admitted that international events were likely to play a bigger role in what the constituency expected from the party's attempts at reform this time around. With many Muslims here convinced that Islam is under constant incursion by the West, the yearning to reassert one's identity naturally arises. This means PAS may find itself having to cater to two audiences: those who seek a more tolerant, inclusive and modernist approach to Islam, and an increasingly less flexible hardline branch.

This is where Anwar could play a pivotal role. He is dexterous at appealing to traditionalists and modernists, and certainly the PAS leadership is glad for his endorsement. Even Anwar's support, however, may not be enough for PAS to shake its hardline image. Neither Anwar nor PAS's leadership changes have been able to attract the interest of another crucial opposition party, the Chinese-based Democratic Action Party, or DAP. (Chinese account for 26% of Malaysia's population.) DAP, PAS and the Justice Party (headed by Anwar's wife) formerly made up a multiracial coalition. DAP left the coalition largely because PAS would not abandon its Islamic state agenda. DAP's leadership welcomes the new moves within PAS, but say they are hardly enough to reconsider joining the opposition front. "I don't want to appear like I'm pouring cold water on the [developments], but PAS still has a long distance to go," said DAP's secretary general Lim Guan Eng. "We want to see action, action that addresses concerns of most Malaysians."

Until that happens, Lim and many other Malaysians will continue to see PAS for what it has long been: an Islamic party with a thoroughly Islamic agenda in a country in which Muslims make up but 55% of the population. PAS is inherently a hard sell.

Ioannis Gatsiounis, a New York native, has worked as a freelance foreign correspondent and previously co-hosted a weekly political/cultural radio call-in show in the US. He has been living in Malaysia since late 2002.

(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd.)