In Malaysia, the Islamic fundamentalist party stronger than ever
Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, president of UMNO (center left) and Abdul Hadi Awang, president of PAS (center right) in September 2019 (illustration image).
PA
Text by: Gabrielle Maréchaux Follow
4 mins
The success of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party in the legislative elections of November 19 did not fail to arouse a certain astonishment in the country with a Muslim majority.
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From our correspondent in Kuala Lumpur,
The information would pass almost unnoticed.
While Anwar Ibrahim, who likes to present himself as a progressive reformer and a moderate Muslim,
was appointed Prime Minister
after the legislative elections, the leading party in Parliament is now the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (Parti Islam Se- Malaysia, abbreviated as PAS), with 43 MPs, 25 more than in the previous election.
A success that the media in Southeast Asia did not fail to describe as a "green wave", after the emblematic color of the party, also that considered
the favorite of the Prophet Muhammad
.
Because until now the PAS, founded in 1951 and inspired by the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, was mainly influential in the northern and eastern states of the country (Kedah, Kelantan, Terengganu) and little known beyond the Malaysian borders, if not perhaps in Brunei where his former ideologue, Nik Aziz, is
considered the mastermind of the sultan
who decided to establish sharia punishing in particular adulterous women with death by stoning.
A party favored by young people
And if the latest electoral performance of the PAS is surprising, it is first of all because the party was particularly acclaimed by a young electorate, thus proving the lie of all those for whom the vote of the
millennials
would necessarily be progressive and liberal.
Two qualifiers that are difficult to apply to describe the PAS, whose leaders have stood out above all for their very rigorous words and actions,
prohibiting
women artists from performing in front of men in the Terengganu region, under their political control,
congratulating
the Taliban during of their capture of Kabul in 2021 or
condemning
the holding of rock concerts last August.
But on closer inspection, the PAS actually remains much closer than it seems to the country's Muslim youth, and this, from an early age.
"
The PAS is not just a political party, it's a social movement, the party runs the largest network of kindergartens and daycare centers in the country,
" said specialist in Muslim extremism Nawab Osman.
And if until 2018, ustaz
(religious teachers)
linked to the PAS were prohibited from speaking in mosques, they can now access them.
»
Religious education as a Trojan horse?
Rather as a political foundation for Joseph Liow, a specialist in Islam in Southeast Asia.
“
In the pure tradition of the Muslim Brotherhood, education has always played an essential role for the party.
Many of its early members and leaders taught in PAS schools
,” he explains.
Starting with its president, Abdul Hadi Awang, often called “Tuan Guru” (Mister Professor) on TikTok, where his lieutenants have also been able to prosper and speak to younger generations.
The PAS was able to capitalize on the disenchantment of the UMNO
In addition to therefore knowing how to reach a certain youth that it knows well for having sometimes educated them, the PAS also knew, during the last election, to take advantage of the real disappointment of the voters with regard to the Malaysian Nationalist Party of UMNO, mired in gigantic corruption scandals.
For decades, these two parties have been vying for the hearts and votes of the country's majority ethnic Malay Muslims,
accusing
each other of being bad Muslims.
But in the current context, where the image of UMNO is inseparable from the specter of kleptocracy, the PAS has been able to capitalize on this disenchantment with UMNO, which is already very powerful in its historic stronghold, Kelantan.
"
The success of PAS in Kelantan is the work of Nik Aziz,
" recalls Ibrahim Suffian, head of the Merdeka Center research center.
He conveyed an image of piety, of humility which aroused sympathy and admiration, because this State could have been deprived of resources by the federal government then led by UMNO.
Thus, despite the absence of quality public services, voters continued to support the PAS, as an act of defiance towards the ruling UMNO.
And today, the PAS has managed to give the impression that it locally runs less corrupt administrations
“, he concludes.
An impression only, because Kelantan is not spared by the corruption scandals which vampirize the Malaysian political life.
Last August
,
for example,
the director general of the public water management company in Kelantan was
tried for corruption .
Now the biggest party in the Malaysian Parliament, the PAS assured that it would act
as a “constructive opposition
”.
If we will therefore probably not see its deputies sitting with the government of national unity of Anwar Ibrahim, we will however be able to see some of them in court, starting with its president who will have to justify
his remarks made there last August
, affirming that corruption in Malaysia was caused by the country's non-Muslim minority.
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