“On a cool spring day in 1950 at a California college campus, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a tall, angular man of 22, was in a garrulous mood. He told my father: ‘Ah, Pakistan. See what we will do with my wonderful new country.’ My father, like young Bhutto, a student at the University of California, Berkeley, was unimpressed. ‘A country founded on theocracy,’ he told Bhutto, ‘will never work.’ Bhutto walked away in a huff.” The real truth is that thick skinned and moronic that Pas leaders are in general they cannot be expected to be tolerant of divergent points of views Dr. Dzulkefly Ahmad only happens to be the last victim of this intolerance. There have been many, including most bloggers who disagree with Pas deology, who have been panned and personally attacked in the past….
“Secularism in the political – as opposed to ecclesiastical – sense requires the separation of the state from any particular religious order. This can be interpreted in at least two different ways. The first view argues that secularism demands that the state be equidistant from all religions – refusing to take sides and having a neutral attitude towards them. The second – more severe – view insists that the state must not have any relation at all with any religion. The equidistance must take the form, then, of being altogether removed from each. “In both interpretations, secularism goes against giving any religion a privileged position in the activities of the state. In the broader interpretation (the first view), however there is no demand that the state must stay clear of any association with any religious matter whatsoever. Rather what is needed is to make sure that in so far as the state has to deal with different religions and members of different religious communities, there must be a basic symmetry of treatment.” Pas has to understand this. People have different points of view. They can disagree with their ideologies (which are few I believe!). That doesn’t make them enemies. That may make them a political opponent (which in this case isn’t true forthe son-in-law of PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang is hardly a politician) but an enemy. The Pas repeatedly forgets this. In fact, its not in its DNA to understand that in a democracy, people can have different points of view. Datuk Husam Musais not an enemy because he doesn’t agree with Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang he is only one who has a different point of view.
Before the 13th general election, Zaharudin Muhammad was not a well-known name, except among those active in PAS.
These days, the son-in-law of PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang (pic) is unflatteringly compared with Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s son-in-law Khairy Jamaluddin, who was cast as a bad influence to the then prime minister but is now the Youth and Sports Minister.
Zaharudin is also seen as a growing influence in the Islamist party after two years in the PAS’s top decision-making body Syura council and as head of the religious department in Selangor state-owned Kumpulan Perangsang Selangor since 2012.
He is now touted to play a leading role in the party elections later this year, where there is a move to put in more clerics or ulama in the top party leadership and get rid of professionals or “Erdogan”, named after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan.
The professionals, led by deputy president Mohamad Sabu, are at a disadvantage as almost all of them lost in the recent May 5 general elections.
Mohamad lost the Pendang contest, party vice-president Salahuddin Ayub lost in both the Pulai parliamentary seat and Nusajaya state seat while vice-president Datuk Husam Musa lost the Putrajaya contest but claimed victory in Kelantan’s Salor state seat.
But he was not named in the Kelantan executive council under new Menteri Besar Datuk Ahmad Yakob.
Another “Erdogan”, Dr. Dzulkefly Ahmad, lost the Kuala Selangor federal seat. Only Khalid Samad kept the Shah Alam federal seat.
“This creates a big opportunity for Zaharudin and his comrades, who are unhappy with the professionals’ control over the party, to win,” a member of the party’s top leadership told The Malaysian Insider but asked not to be named.
He also pointed out that Zaharudin’s allies, namely PAS Youth leader Nasrudin Hasan and his deputy Nik Mohd Abduh Nik Abdul Aziz, both won in their respective parliamentary seats in Temerloh and Pasir Mas.
Nasrudin was said to be grateful to Zaharudin, for his efforts in lobbying Abdul Hadi into making a “sudden” announcement on his Temerloh candidacy, which was supposed to be contested by PKR’s Ahmad Nizam Hamid, the party source revealed.
The Kota Damansara issue
Zaharudin, better known as Din Ayam, was also blamed when Kota Damansara – which was won by Dr Nasir Hashim of PSM in the 2008 general election – fell to Barisan Nasional (BN), after PAS put up a candidate alongside Nasir, BN and three other independents.
BN’s Halimaton Saadiah polled 16,387 votes for a 1,527 majority, beating the others to clinch the Kota Damansara state seat.
However, if the 14,860 votes obtained by Nasir and PAS’ Rizuan Ismail 7,312 votes were added, Pakatan Rakyat (PR) would have easily won with a total 22,172 votes.
A PAS Selangor source told The Malaysian Insider that Zaharudin had used Nasir’s socialist background to influence Abdul Hadi to sign Rizuan’s approval to contest the seat, although party secretary-general Datuk Mustafa Ali had already agreed that the PSM president would contest Kota Damansara on a PKR ticket.
“When Nasir won on a PKR ticket in 2008, Zaharudin, who was residing in Section 8, Kota Damansara, was not happy.
“He had said that Nasir was not Islam enough, did not always attend mosque, and idolised Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, who were communist leaders,” the source who declined to be named told The Malaysian Insider.
“Mustafa Ali had to come down to Kota Damansara to give political speeches together with Nasir to explain the actual situation to the people, but that programme was boycotted by the local PAS,” he added.
During Election 2013, Abdul Hadi attacked the PKR candidate, whom he alleged had socialist tendencies, although he did not name him openly.
“There are candidates using pictures of Lenin, Stalin, how can PAS support this?
“The PAS people are cooperating with Keadilan… with DAP, not with Lenin or Stalin’s party,” he had said, referring to Russian communist leaders Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Joseph Stalin in a Youtube video clip.
The Abdullah-Khairy comparison
Party insiders also joke about Abdul Hadi and Zaharudin being similar to Abdullah and Khairy during the Umno leader’s term as prime minister between 2003 and 2009.
Khairy was blamed by Umno warlords close to Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad for BN losing its two-thirds supermajority in the 2008 general election, and also losing Selangor, Perak, Penang and Kedah, as well as failing to take over Kelantan.
The PAS insiders point out the similarity, noting the Islamist party fared badly in the May 5 polls, winning only 21 federal seats against the 23 won in 2008. DAP and PKR meanwhile managed to get 38 and 30 seats in Election 2013.
Kedah was controlled by PAS in 2008, but fell in 2013 and Abdul Hadi’s refusal to replace Tan Sri Azizan Razak with another candidate as the mentri besar was said to have contributed to the failure to retain the northern state.
Party insiders are now asking if the son-in-law issue will also spell the downfall of the Marang MP?
For now, it does not seem so, given Abdul Hadi’s strong position as an influencial cleric in the conservative party.
