PAS and other opposition parties will treat the Port Dickson by-election as a “joint exercise” by campaigning together, said the Islamist party’s president, Abdul Hadi Awang.

“If the army can have joint exercises with other countries, by-elections can also be used for the same purporse by opposition parties,” Hadi told reporters after opening the Dewan Himpunan Penyokong PAS (DHPP) meeting in Gong Badak, Terengganu, today.

He said the Sg Kandis and Seri Setia by-elections were successful for Barisan Nasional and PAS, as both had improved on their share of votes.

But the 70-year-old refused to commit when asked if PAS would join Barisan Nasional before the next general election in 2023.

Hadi said that PAS had joined the Alliance in 1972 before it became BN and left in 1977. 

PAS was joined the Pakatan Rakyat coalition in 2008 and jointly governed Selangor, Penang, Perak, Kelantan and Kedah.

“So, politics is very fluid and parties can come and go in coalition politics,” said Hadi.

This year’s annual congress is expected to discuss political cooperation between PAS and Umno ahead of the 15th general election.

While Umno is keen to rope in PAS to capture Malay-Muslim votes, the Islamists are undecided on whether to formalise the cooperation and is expected to use the congress to discuss the idea.

On how it can attract more non-Muslim votes if it cooperates with Umno, Hadi said the emergence of DHPP was a good sign.

“We already have the DHPP and we can activate it in the two states (Kelantan and Terengganu) we are ruling.

“With the tension between federal and state lowered, we can do a lot more.” 

Hadi also refused to call PAS’ plan to woo non-Malay voters a failure, although the party was nearly wiped out on the west coast in the last election.

“To call it a failure (attracting more non-Muslims) is not quite right as we have DHPP. It just hasn’t reached its objectives.”

He said although DHPP’s performance was weak in the last election, the number of candidates had increased.

“The question of votes is another story. It can still improve. Even DAP suffered a drop in votes in 1999.” 

In the last election, PAS fielded more DHPP candidates in seats it had no chance of winning with the aim of creating more three-cornered fights.

However, other than posters, most of the candidates hardly campaigned.

Although PAS surprised many pundits by winning 18 federal and 90 state seats in GE14, the party was nearly wiped out on the west coast.

PAS’ 18 federal seats came from Kedah (3), Kelantan (9) and Terengganu (6). In Selangor, PAS managed to hang on to one state seat in GE14, compared with the 13 it won in the previous national election. – September 14, 2018.