Pakatan must give top priority to winning rural Malay support
Pakatan can win the next general election by adopting the right strategies and fighting the “clandestine Umno-PAS pact”.
By Kim Quek
Amanah recently stated that Pakatan parties must accept the reality and expect multi-cornered fights in the next general election with PAS and BN.
It is unrealistic to expect that PAS will agree to work with Pakatan while its president, Abdul Hadi Awang, is in charge.
The latter has long harboured a desire to work with Umno, and would have formed a joint government with Umno in Selangor after GE12 in 2008, if not for former PAS spiritual adviser Nik Aziz Nik Mat firmly putting his foot down.
Now, without the Nik Aziz stumbling block, Hadi is hell-bent to fulfil his ambition. The hudud issue is only an excuse to break up with DAP and dismantle Pakatan Rakyat.
Looking forward, the likely Umno-PAS strategy would be to form a clandestine pact of co-operation.
Through this plan, PAS will superficially continue to act as an Opposition party with its usual anti-Umno rhetoric, while actually working to maximise electoral wins for Umno/BN through three-cornered fights in exchange for Umno’s tacit agreement for PAS to rule in Kelantan and Terengganu, and possibly a joint rule for Kedah.
The coming challenge to Pakatan is hence daunting. To have a fair chance of winning the next GE, it must place the winning of rural Malay support as top priority, for which it should adopt a twin strategy.
Propose a convincing plan that will allay inbuilt Malay sense of insecurity at the prospect of Umno losing the election, and at the same time vigorously enlighten them of the perils of current corruption that has escalated to a horrible level, as revealed by the 1MDB/RM2.6 billion controversies.
The latter must be explained through simple graphical illustrations that will easily strike resonance among the audience.
Also crucial to the coming electoral battle is the ability of Pakatan, in particular Amanah, to convince PAS members and supporters that PAS under Hadi has already betrayed the party’s sacrosanct Islamic principles by colluding with a party that thrives on corruption and racism.
The degree of Pakatan’s success in this direction may determine the ultimate winner.
Kim Quek is an FMT reader
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