Don't blame Gerakan – PAS itself must clearly show they are open to all races and religions
What can Gerakan do if PAS continues to ride on Islam to become the champion of the Malays?
After interviewing two academicians, popular news portal FMT concluded PAS appears to have given up hope on Gerakan wooing the non-Malays for Perikatan Nasional (PN), with the Islamic party shifting its focus to its own non-Muslim wing.
Universiti Sains Malaysia’s Dr Azmil Tayeb said that Gerakan, a founding component of PN, had failed to garner non-Malay support for the coalition. This includes support from the Indians, who have been more open to switching allegiance than the Chinese.
“PAS would have noticed the trend of Indian voters, in particular, switching support from Pakatan Harapan to PN in several by-elections.
"And Gerakan is growing irrelevant in PN because it is incapable of competing with DAP, MCA, and MIC in attracting non-Malay voters,” the news portal quoted him as saying.
However, Associate Prof Dr Syaza Farhana Mohamad Shukri (picture, above) of International Islamic University Malaysia said Gerakan was never relevant in the first place, and that the relevance of PAS’s non-Muslim wing was also unclear.
She viewed Gerakan and the PAS non-Muslim wing as holding different roles, with the latter serving more as an intermediary between the party’s clerical leadership and the non-Muslim community.
“Unlike the wing, Gerakan would not fully support PAS’s agenda as they’re totally different parties.
“But is this PAS non-Muslim wing even relevant in the first place? Perhaps it will hold more relevance than Gerakan just because it bears the PAS name, which is far more prominent in PN,” she said.
The PAS non-Muslim wing held its first convention last weekend following its formal incorporation into the Islamic party as an associate wing in September last year.
Its head, Encik G Balachandran, said PAS must leverage the wing to dispel fears about the party among the non-Malay community.
He added that the wing must must be strengthened not merely as a political support platform, but also as a bridge for national unity and greater inter-racial understanding.
Syaza said PN could struggle with seat negotiations in future elections when allocating mixed or non-Malay-majority seats.
She pointed out that both PAS and Bersatu have non-Malay associate wings, while PN’s other two components – Gerakan and the Malaysian Indian People’s Party – are non-Malay-based parties.
This means that all four parties may jostle to contest these seats, she said, adding however that the bigger question was whether they could win their contests.
PN has consistently struggled to win non-Malay support in elections, particularly that of Chinese voters whom pundits say are put off by PAS’s purportedly hardline stance.
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