The Unity Government Proposal

It was a shock for me, I felt like falling off a mountain when I heard PAS President Ustaz Hadi Awang made statement after statement advocating the unity government with UMNO concept. The underlying concept is not the problem as the nation's most pressing issues require a by-partisan approach to solve them. What troubled me was the fact that the concept threatens the solidarity of the Pakatan Rakyat coalition viability to challenge the Barisan Nasional dominance in the Malaysian political scene as the issue was not properly communicated and many PAS and Pakatan Rakyat leaders made conflicting statements confusing supporters and giving room for BN to exploit the issue to further the pace of destruction for the young coalition.


I will not speak on behalf of Hadi so I will not touch on the unity government concept, however what is more important is the consequences of the miscommunication on the future of PAS and Pakatan Rakyat, not to mention the country as a whole. Firstly, the effect on PAS, it must be noted that PAS experimentation with the BN in the past didn't go so well as PAS took years to regain their footing after the party splits into many factions after the failure of PAS move into BN. Therefore using history as a reference it is not impossible that PAS will indeed spilt again this time around if they decide to join BN as they are many within the party that disagree staunchly with the proposal, and this time around it is uncertain whether PAS can come back from the dead as in the past they are no strong Malay opposition party when PAS was in a state of diaspora, so PAS was the place for the Malays who disagree with UMNO to voice their dissent. However currently there's PKR so PAS might not be so lucky this time.

For Pakatan Rakyat, of course losing it's major partner will be a blow to the coalition which has not managed to get a solid footing on the ground as they are plagued by inexperience politicians and the difference in ideologies among them made matters worst. Pakatan Rakyat will of course risk losing control of some of the state they are currently governing if PAS is to join UMNO. PAS is important component of Pakatan as they are the one's with the ability to challenge UMNO foothold of the Malay heartlands thus spliting this core supporter of UMNO without which UMNO and BN will not be able to form the government, especially the Malay-rural voters.

Finally, for the country, losing a good opposition due to PAS departure from the opposition will enhance UMNO political power thus making them arrogant and overly powerful, bringing back the ghost of pre-March 8 where UMNO can do whatever they like with the country, even when such actions is bad for the country as there is no proper check-and-balance by the opposition as the opposition was to weak then.

So, I urged PAS to move cautiously and resist the temptations of being in power for the greater good of the country. It will be a great betrayal on the part of PAS if they are to join BN to the voters who wanted a strong opposition not to mention to PAS members itself who openly expressed their strong disagreement to the idea.