AS the defeated Barisan Nasional tries to get its act together as the country’s new opposition, political scientist Wong Chin Huat said it could remain a moderate rival or potentially become a “nasty” one.

Wong is predicting the possibility of BN’s lynchpin party Umno and Islamist party PAS converging, and BN parties or its former component members in East Malaysia forming a block of their own to challenge Pakatan Harapan.

If this happens, the likely issues would be Malay rights and Islamisation in West Malaysia, and autonomy and self-determination in East Malaysia, he said.

“This will force PH to respond or to lose popularity,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

Wong said this had happened before, when BN’s predecessor Alliance, under the leadership of Tunku Abdul Rahman, “lost the game” by 1969 – the year the opposition made great gains in the general election.

The post-election racial riots in 1969 brought PAS and Umno together in 1972 to strengthen Malay unity.

In the 1974 general election, PAS gained 14 parliamentary seats while contesting under the BN banner. But a political crisis in Kelantan caused PAS to leave BN in December 1977.

Another example Wong cited was Umno losing the Islamisation race that started in 1981 to PAS, which used religion to counter Umno’s nationalism, even though the Islamist party never grew strong enough to unseat the BN Malay-based party.

However, despite past animosity, Umno and PAS grew closer in the run-up to the 14th general election, with BN allowing PAS to table its private member’s bill to enhance shariah court punishments, which was much opposed by PH parties.

Despite the association with Umno, which many PAS supporters frowned on, the Islamist party managed to win 18 parliamentary seats and two states in the recent polls.

BN was in control of the federal government for six decades, until the coalition was knocked out in the May 9 polls.

BN has 76 parliamentary seats in the 222-seat Dewan Rakyat, against PH’s 126 seats that include its allies from other parties.

Wong said some might say it was still too early to worry about more conservative Islamisation of the opposition but he believed “things move fast”, citing the recent incident in Muslim-majority Manjoi, Perak.

“To not think ahead of your opponents is to lose the chess game eventually,” the political and social analyst said.

A Perak Muslim group called Jabat had recently cleared a Speedmart99 an outlet of beer.

In a video of the incident that went viral, a group of 10 men, including PAS candidate for Manjoi, Hafez Sabri, were seen supervising shop workers as they cleared out a refrigerator of beer.

The group then lodged a police report at the Manjoi station, and reportedly warned other outlets about selling alcohol in Muslim areas.

The objection against alcohol consumption among Muslim hard line groups is nothing new in Malaysia. Groups and PAS had protested against beer festivals that resulted in some cancellations, including the Better Beer Festival last year.

Wong, in a recent Facebook post, observed such objections as social conservatism, authoritarianism and sectarian supremacy, with some thinking that because their religious scriptures say nobody should drink, others must not drink either. – June 5, 2018.