The prospect of the country’s leading opposition party, Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS), ever seizing national power seems remote. The ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, led by Abdullah’s United Malays National Organization (UMNO), has run the country since independence in 1957–and, with the support of minority Indian and Chinese parties, controls a two-thirds majority of Parliament. But in 1999, during the last national elections, PAS took control of a second state assembly, and anecdotal evidence suggests that support for PAS has grown in the Malay heartland in the north of the country. “Abdullah will have to check the influence of PAS because he will be affected politically if they make gains,” says Syed Hussein Alatas, an expert on Malaysian Islam.
Ruling-party politicians are privately terrified that PAS could make further gains in both parliamentary and state elections expected early next year. Indeed, one of outgoing Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s chief tasks after retirement will be to campaign up north, especially in the swing state of Kedah, where he was born. PAS cannot win an outright majority in the next national parliamentary election, but if the Islamists win enough seats to break the ruling coalition’s two-thirds majority, Abdullah could face a leadership challenge as early as next June’s UMNO conference. “The results will determine if Abdullah can consolidate his power after seven months in office, or is a weak, temporary leader,” says another senior Kuala Lumpur-based diplomat. “It’s more an election for UMNO to lose rather than PAS to win.”
Abdullah supporters profess not to be worried, insisting that the opposition rhetoric only drives more Malaysians into their camp. “How can you accept a party that says women cannot sing in public?” says Tourism and Culture Minister Abdul Kadir. Although PAS supports economic modernization, it’s taken a hard line on social policy. Party leaders demand an Islamic state with Sharia, and they want to ban the sale of alcohol, as well as nightclubs and movie theaters, nationwide. (They’ve enforced the alcohol ban in the two states they control, Terengganu and Kelantan, but have been blocked from implementing Sharia by the federal government, which said it violates the federal Constitution.) Ever since 9/11 the government has sought to underscore the more extreme elements in the PAS platform–a campaign well suited to Abdullah, a noted Islamic scholar.
PAS leaders, on the other hand, frame their challenge to the ruling party as a drive for clean government and transparency, themes that play well among poor, rural Malay Muslims. And their appeal is bolstered by the lack of any other credible opposition. “UMNO has maintained its grip on power by constraining democracy and enacting laws to keep themselves in power,” says opposition leader Hadi Awang. PAS has tempered its social message by saying women are entitled to equal rights, and that any constitutional amendment to mandate Sharia would not apply to Malaysia’s Chinese and Indian minorities. “This is the wish of the people,” Awang says.
Ultimately Abdullah will have to use his grass-roots popularity and the UMNO political machine to regain the trust of rural Malays, many of whom have never cashed in on Malaysia’s economic development. In addition, Abdullah must be more vigorous about tackling government corruption, and showing more accountability, than the powerful Mahathir did, analysts say. But party operatives will continue to play the Islamist card as well. “The government is trying to frame [the next] election as Sharia versus secular,” says a diplomatic source. “Do you want to live under the Taliban, or do you want to live in a prosperous, multicultural, moderate Islamic state?”
Malaysia has thus far avoided the bitter religious strife and terrorist attacks that have plagued its sister country Indonesia. There is no militant movement in the country, and a majority of citizens are eager to keep it that way. “There are still these fears about what will happen if PAS is put into power,” says political analyst Chandra Muzaffar. That fact should help Abdullah, and is likely to keep his party in power for years to come.
