On PKR’s Strategy
I just don’t get the strategists in PKR man. I’ve just read an article on Malaysia-Today here, and all I can say is that they are deluding themselves. I mean, come on, they wanna ask the Chinese community to support PAS in the coming Kelantan state by-election? I feel that their strategy is fatally flawed man. The Chinese are scared out of their pants of PAS’s dream of a hand-chopping Hudud Law state, and you think that they can be convinced to vote for PAS solely out of goodwill corporation amongst the opposition parties to deny BN a state? Dream on lah! 
The reality is, PAS is poison to the non-Muslim community (ie: Chinese and Indians), and to a certain extent, many urban Malays as well. After 6 years, PKR should have by now decided where it’s stance is. And I still say that it should dissasociate itself fully from PAS. Why is it so afraid of doing so?
In terms of it’s voter base, what does PKR hope to accomplish by remaining close allies with PAS? Why would our more religious-inclined Muslim Malaysians want to vote for PKR when they already have PAS? PAS has never been able to win many seats (7 in the 04 GE) at the federal parliament level anyways. Instead, DAP has consistently been the opposition party with the largest number (12 in the 04 GE) of federal parliament seats. The only time in recent memory that PAS beat DAP at the federal level was in 1999, and even that was solely because of the Anwar backlash, and not because of any enthusiastic endorsement of PAS’s Islamic State vision. So what does this tell us? That the majority of Malaysians, irregardless of race prefer a secular party (ie BN, DAP) as oppose to a theocratic one (ie PAS). So why isn’t PKR positioning itself that way then? It would have the added advantage, as oppose to UMNO, of not just being able to pull in the non-PAS Malay votes, but also of the entire spectrum of non-Malay Muslims in Malaysia due to it’s multiracial outlook! If done correctly, PKR has the potential of rendering DAP, and the whole of the BN component parties obsolete. On the other hand, PAS is at best only a fringe state party ala Kelantan and Terengganu. Likewise, by associating itself so closely with PAS, PKR will alienate it’s Chinese, Indian, and the not-so-religiously-inclined Malay supporters for no apparent gains. I feel then that PKR should instead totally switched it’s strategy and concentrate on attracting the urban, liberal, and secular Malaysian voters if it harbours any aspirations of presenting itself as an alternative federal level party to BN.
