Wednesday, June 8, 2011

UMNO, the sour grapes while PAS, the sweetener

It is really incredible that a mosquito party (a common description of PAS, once upon a time) has been getting so much attention in the mainstream media and from Umno@Perkasa. Of course, most of the attention is negative and derogatory.

According to The Malaysian Insider, Nazri Aziz has called PAS a pseudo-Umno party, lashing it for abandoning its Islamic principles.

Should we take his comments seriously since it is being made by a pseudo democrat, pseudo liberal, pseudo intelligent politician. These men and women have ruled Malaysia for more than half a century but yet they are so insecure by the so-called rise and moving to the centre of the mosquito party.

They have the police in their pocket, have friends in the Election Commission, control the mainstream media and have tonnes of money (can someone explain to me how exactly 1MDB, the provider of endless scholarships, is making money) and yet the Umno government is quaking because someone they ridiculed as a public orator and jester, Mat Sabu, is deputy president of PAS.

It seems like Umno politicians have many names and labels for PAS. So let me add to the discourse by stating what PAS isn’t.

PAS is NOT:

* A party packed with corrupt, rent-seeking politicians who are occupying public office as a means of enriching themselves.

* A party of politicians with Machiavellian ideas of staying in power, and this includes pitting the different races against each other and tearing the country apart with race politics.

* A party of Jekyl and Hyde politicians. They perform umrah ever so often, put on a face of piety but then are quite happy to break all the laws of God behind closed doors.

* A party of politicians who have lost their moral compass and ability to lead this country.

* A party of politicians who have milked the resources of this country through cronyism and nepotism.

* A party of politicians who have allowed the rakyat — the ultimate stakeholders in Malaysia — to bear the brunt of lopsided privatisation deals.

* A party of politicians who have used the ISA, destroyed institutions and subverted the rule of law to hold power.

My point is that PAS is many things (conservative, backward, pseudo Islamic) but it is not Umno. And that is surely its best attribute.

[Source: The MI]

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