A PAS-Umno tie-up seals the end of Umno’s attempts to gain ground in the next election in Sarawak and Sabah, once known as Barisan Nasional’s “fixed deposits”, observers say.

Yesterday, the two parties tangoed at the PAS annual congress, but Sarawakians and Sabahans say an electoral pact in the next state election will fail because Malays here have changed their perception of Umno, the BN lynchpin party.

“To the Malays in Sarawak, the perception of Umno-BN has changed,” said political analyst Jeniri Amir from Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas).

“Umno is now seen as dirty with its excesses, former party president Najib’s Razak’s alleged theft from 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), and BN’s mismanagement of the government.”

While Umno has never successfully set foot in Sarawak, ruling party Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) was always seen as its proxy and was the lead party of BN in the state.

But PBB, along with other state BN components left the coalition after GE14, taking with them 19 federal state seats to form a new alliance, Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS).

Even if GPS were to change direction and side with an Umno-PAS pact in the next general election, such an alliance would never have enough parliamentary seats to reach a simple majority of 112 seats. Umno has 51 federal seats and PAS 18, making a total of 88 seats if combined with GPS.

While PAS has set up branches in Sarawak and some of its political ideology has appealed to Malays here, it is still not enough to establish a stronger foothold in the state where the majority population are indigenous bumiputera.

“PAS is viewed as extremist in their religious views. They are not in line with the thinking of moderate Sarawak Muslims. They (PAS) just don’t fit into their (Sarawak Malay Muslim) ideology,” Jeniri added.

One of the few Malay members of Sarawak DAP, Abdul Aziz Isa, said Sarawakians remain wary of any ideology that could create discord among the state’s diverse ethnic and native groups.

Aziz, who is a special representative of Sarawak PH chief Chong Chieng Jen, said an Umno-PAS collaboration would result in Malaysia having a far-right political group based on race and religion.

“This kind of political pact would also be detrimental to the Malaysian unity process and it is also not good for us as Sarawakians,” Aziz said.

Jeniri concurs, adding that an Umno-PAS alliance will only “build more walls” between Malay-Muslims, who comprise less than 27% of the state’s 2 million-plus population, and other races.

For either PAS or Umno to gain traction in Sarawak, they will have to find allies among smaller local parties but most of these have already formed alliances around the core drive for greater state autonomy in line with the Malaysia Agreement 1963.

Umno, in particular, being part of the former federal government, is not seen as one willing to return Sarawak its rights and greater ownership of its resources.

For similar reasons, Sabahans intend to reject any pact between Umno and PAS.

BN Sabah is dead following defections from its component parties and Sabah Umno has regrouped with other opposition parties to form Gabungan Bersatu Sabah (GBS) to replace BN.

Should Sabah Umno form an alliance with PAS, this will immediately be rejected by its GBS partners Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) and Parti Solidariti Tanah Airku (Solidariti), said veteran political observer Stanely Yee, who was formerly an aide to prominent Sabah politician Joseph Pairin Kitingan.

“The original plan to establish GBS came with the idea that there will be no more parties controlled by their peninsula bosses,” he said.

“If Umno were to propose including PAS in GBS, there will be resentment among PBS and Solidariti members due to PAS’ interest towards implementing Islamic laws.”

Yee also said that PBS and Solidariti were not formed as race-based parties like Umno and PAS, although most of its members are made up largely by the KadazanDusun Murut (KDM) people, most of whom are Christians.

Sabah Umno leaders are also nothing like those from peninsula Umno, as leaders in Sabah did not use the race card, noted political researcher Tracy Chin.

“Here, there are many inter-marriages, so families will have a mix of Christians, Buddhist, Muslims and Hindus. Racial integration here is excellent.

“We don’t classify individuals here unlike how Muslims (in the peninsula) identify those who are different, like mualaf (Muslim convert) or muhrim,” she said.

The fact that PAS had never won any seats in elections was enough show that its brand of politics had never been accepted by Sabahans, and teaming up with Umno would not help it, she added.

For Sabahan Jojo Rahman, despite being Muslim, the idea of supporting a party like PAS that allowed public shaming through punishments like caning, is unappealing.

The 40-year-old executive said he could not trust leaders to implement laws fairly, even if they were hudud laws supported by the religion.

“Even under civil law, there are poor people being jailed five years for stealing while the rich and powerful could still go free.

“If the present law is not used fairly, what makes us think hudud will be implemented fairly?” – September 16, 2018.