KUALA LUMPUR, July 28 — Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s unprecedented appearance at a PAS event last week showed the lengths to which he would go to remain relevant in Malaysian politics, according to analysts.
After increasingly emphatic remarks in support of PAS and its Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition recently, the twice former prime minister finally appeared with the leaders of the Islamist party he had mocked while in Umno and Bersatu.
Despite this, however, the analysts said PAS was unlikely to derive any significant benefit from his appearance, indicating that it was lending Dr Mahathir a platform simply to signal its own ascendancy.
Nusantara Academy for Strategic Research (NASR) senior fellow Azmi Hassan told Malay Mail that PAS already possesses a loyal and dedicated voter base from its religious appeal, and does not need Dr Mahathir to tap this audience.
“Dr Mahathir needs PAS more than the other way around and Mahathir is reaping the benefits,” he said referring to the former prime minister’s attempt to regain support from the Islamist party base.
Azmi said Dr Mahathir may have won over PAS with the “Malay Proclamation” he developed after losing in the 15th general election, purportedly to unite the community against the existential threats that coincidentally developed after he resigned as the prime minister in 2020.
The common ground of racial unity proposed in the “Malay Proclamation” has also allowed Dr Mahathir and PAS to bridge the gap that was their differing views on Islam.
According to Mazlan Ali, a political analyst from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia’s Razak Faculty Perdana Centre, Dr Mahathir’s appearance at a Perikatan Nasional event could instead be detrimental to the coalition.
Since PN already did not need his help to attract Malay votes, Mazlan said Dr Mahathir’s provocative remarks about the non-Malays could instead turn away any of the community’s support for the coalition.
He said Dr Mahathir has repeatedly made remarks indicative of his belief about Malay supremacy, which would repel moderate Malaysians as well as non-Malays.
“I thought Tun Mahathir will reduce non-Malay support for PN because of his Malay agenda,” he said referring to the communal agreement that was also signed by PN leaders including Bersatu president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and PAS president Tan Sri Abdul Hadi Awang.
Syaza Shukri, assistant professor of political science at International Islamic University Malaysia, said PAS and PN may have offered Dr Mahathir a stage simply to consolidate all Malay politicians under them and bolster their claim of uniting the community.
However, Syaza said it was still unclear what Dr Mahathir’s motive was for personally appearing at a PAS event, seeing as he was not directly involved in the six state elections taking place next month.
“On one hand, I want to say that he has made it clear that [Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim] is incompetent and needs to be replaced.
“But the thing is, he never mentions who is best to replace Anwar. So that is where we have the confusion of what his objective is,” she said.
Two days ago, Abdul Hadi said that Dr Mahathir has finally returned “to the fold of his struggles” after joining hands with PN recently.
In a post comparing Dr Mahathir to Anwar, Abdul Hadi said it was not the first time the ex-prime minister has worked with PAS as he had done so in 1969 after he was expelled from Umno.
