Saturday, June 06, 2009 Web posted at: 6/6/2009
2:43:43Source ::: Reuters
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s Islamist party sought yesterday to project itself as a national party of all races and religions as it positioned itself as the top contender to oust the government that has ruled for 51 years.
Abdul Hadi Awang, president of the Pan Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), said non-Muslims could ultimately be allowed to join the party, a pledge analysts said signalled tolerance towards ethnic minorities, who make up 45 percent of this Southeast Asian country’s 27 million population.
The key moment of the annual meeting will be a battle for top party posts, pitting Abdul Hadi’s conservative wing that has in the past considered allying with the National Front government, against reformers who have said “no” to any deal.
“PAS is ready to offer itself to lead the change and bear the trust of national leadership in Malaysia’s heterogeneous society after the 13th general election, God-willing,” Abdul Hadi told a sea of white skull-capped delegates dressed in green at the PAS annual congress.
PAS is a member of a three-party opposition alliance led by Anwar Ibrahim that hopes to take power from the National Front coalition in elections due by 2013.
Although PAS is Malaysia’s second largest political party in terms of mass membership after the main government party, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), it is the smallest of the three opposition parties in parliament, holding 24 of the alliance’s 83 seats.
Set up in 1951, PAS spent most of its life on the political fringes, happy to confine itself to a narrow Islamic voter base. But since moderating its austere religious image and joining the opposition bloc it has reached out to ethnic Chinese and Indian voters and winning ethnically mixed seats.
“To a certain extent, this was really PAS projecting itself as a national party,” said Bridget Welsh, a Malaysia specialist at Johns Hopkins University.
“It sees itself as an umbrella for non-Malays to come in and for Sabah and Sarawak to come in,” she said, referring to two states on Borneo island currently with the government coalition.
Faced with a united opposition and growing discontent over the National Front and UMNO’s failure to stem corruption, the government stumbled to its worst-ever results in national and state elections last year, triggering foreign investor flight at the same time as worries grew over the US credit crisis.
A rising budget deficit, which will see about 90bn Malaysian ringgit ($25.77bn) of bonds issued this year and lack of clarity over reforms planned by Prime Minister Najib Razak has hit financial markets here.
Malaysian five year bond yields stand wider than Thailand, which has a lower credit rating, while the stock market has underperformed a strong Asian rally, gaining 22 percent compared with the 34 percent gain in the benchmark MSCI Asia-Pacific index excluding Japan.
Abdul Hadi later toned down his stance when asked by reporters about his plan for PAS to become the opposition’s lead body, saying the alliance practised collective leadership.
“The political scenario can change ... What’s important is principle and concept of cooperation, not defending any individual,” he said.
Anwar, who is parliamentary opposition leader, has always been accepted as the most likely candidate to be Prime Minister should the Alliance wrest power from the Front.