Now it is an open war between PAS and PKR, the two parties that had worked together to deprive BN of several Malay seats in the 2008 general election.
The war is expected due to the differences in their political ideologies – one is Islamic fundamentalism and the other liberal – two ingredients that cannot mix even in a cooking pot.
The fundamentalists in PAS, comprising the veterans, have been quietly defending the fort while watching closely Anwar Ibrahim’s men, who have been planted to undermine the party, taking positions of authority in the party during past party elections.
Along the way, these liberals, who are supposed to steer the party struggles from fundamentalism to lslamic liberalism, knocked out several die-hards such as Datuk Hassan Ali and Nasharuddin Mat Isa.
The fundamentalists, headed by party president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang, have been putting up with the liberals, knowing who is behind them and knowing what they are aiming for.
For sometime, they waited and watched, hoping for the liberals to have some respect towards them, have some decorum in scrambling for positions, but what they saw is ‘hungry intellectuals side-stepping religious and normal Malay culture scrambling to turn take over the party’ to achieve their ‘master’s’ objective.
PAS deputy Ulamak council chief Dr Haron Din’s open statement about Anwar and his ways which PAS would not follow is considered an open war…a declaration that may see the two parties parting ways soon.
Anwar would now try to tone down and console PAS leaders as he needs the party’s support so much to achieve his ambition to head Putrajaya.
With only DAP support, Anwar may not even managed to win one-third of the total parliament seats to lead him to Putrajaya.
As war with PAS is inevitable, Anwar’s party PKR is having problem with DAP in Penang as the DAP views PKR with distrust after knowing the minds of PKR state chief Mansor Othman in the leaked minutes of a meeting in April.
This has affected their co-operation and also created silent animosity between the Chinese and Malay members in PKR as the leaked was certainly done by a Chinese member to gain favour from DAP’s Lim Guan Eng.
Thus the scenario in Penang is volatile for PKR while in Selangor, the party is facing an internal squabbles that may see no ending because the ‘bad blood’ started two years ago during the party election and drags until today.
Given such a scenario, Anwar has no choice but to earn the trust of DAP by doing anything including ‘selling the Malay race and religion’.
