Malaysia’s opposition Islamist party quashed the ruling government’s hopes of forming a pact, opting instead to consolidate a “government-in-waiting” under the leadership of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.
Pan Malaysia Islamic Party (PAS) leaders said at an annual assembly they would turn down the ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) party’s offer of a unity government that would have stymied Anwar’s hopes of wresting power in polls due by 2013.
PAS and UMNO held surprise talks last year over Islam and Malay unity, creating concern in opposition circles.
UMNO, the dominant party in the ruling National Front coalition that has ruled this Southeast Asian country for 51 years, is still struggling to recover from historic defeats in general elections last year.
Both PAS and UMNO are the only two parties able to deliver the crucial vote from majority Malay Muslims who make up more than half of the country’s 27 million population and whose support will be needed to form a stable government.
“The party leadership never had any intention to join UMNO or the National Front ... we will instead strengthen and consolidate the People’s Alliance,” PAS deputy president Nasharudin Mat Isa said late on Wednesday to cheers when opening the party’s youth wing meeting at the nation’s capital.
The People’s Alliance is a coalition of opposition parties led by Anwar.
“As far as this assembly is concerned, we are preparing for the next general election. The message that we must now consider ourselves a government-in-waiting is very clear,” he told reporters later.
PAS staying with three-party People’s Alliance will be a blow to the National Front and new Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, who has to turn around the ruling coalition and grapple with an impending recession that may see the economy shrink as much as 5 percent this year.
Najib’s father, Malaysia’s second prime minister Abdul Razak Hussein, roped in the Islamists into the ruling National Front coalition in 1974. The marriage was short-lived with PAS pulling out acrimoniously four years later.
The cooperation issue is a controversial topic for PAS’ assembly as well as its internal party elections this year.
Nasharudin is being challenged by the party vice president Husam Musa, who leads a reform group bitterly opposed to cooperating with UMNO.
A cleric, Nasharudin enjoys the backing of the party’s conservatives and was among the PAS leaders who led talks with the government after the 2008 polls to jointly govern the economic powerhouse state of Selangor and northwestern Perak.
RSS