PAS is the party to watch!

There is little expectation of PAS itself performing well at the upcoming general election.

To take just one example, Invoke Malaysia, a pollster, asserted this month that PAS could fail to win a single parliamentary and state seat.

PAS currently has 14 seats in the Dewan Rakyat, Malaysia’s lower house, and 78 in state assemblies.

There are even doubts over whether it can hold onto Kelantan, its northern stronghold, said The Diplomat.

But the role for PAS could be that of a spoiler for the opposition rather than as a winner in its own right within the country’s broader political dynamics.

In achieving this, the PAS would have killed itself. But if one or two of its leaders grabs a Parliamentary seat, it would mean success for them.

The party would survive as it might be called upon to join the Barisan Nasional government – if the BN were to win the elections. They are predicted to win, nevertheless.

The importance of PAS in the upcoming general election is not that it could win seats but that it could prevent the opposition Pakatan Harapan coalition from winning them.

Mahathir was onto something when he said, last month, that PAS’ “presence is merely to assist BN.”In December, PAS said it would compete for at least 130 out of 222 parliament seats, though a final figure hasn’t yet been announced.

The PPBM, meanwhile, will contest 52 seats in peninsular Malaysia, the most of any party from the Harapan coalition, while Amanah will compete in 27.

The majority of these, for both the PPBM and Amanah, will be in rural, Malay-majority constituencies that typically fall to the UMNO. These are the same seats that the PAS is likely to also compete in.

During the last election, in 2013, when PAS was a member of the Rakyat coalition, it could contest seats head-to-head with the UMNO.

But this time around, things will be different. In a good number of seats, the contest will either be between the UMNO, PPBM, and PAS, or between the UMNO, Amanah, and PAS.

How exactly PAS’s role plays out in the election and thereafter remains to be seen.

Some analysts are of the opinion that, at some stage last year, the UMNO was seriously considering forming an informal alliance with PAS – or, at the very least, some sort of agreement based on the tacit acceptance that an UMNO-government would be better for PAS than one controlled by the Pakatan Harapan coalition.

But there is the slight chance that of the two grand coalitions won’t be able to form a majority government after this year’s election.

And if PAS does win some seats, it might be able to choose which coalition to join, handing Putrajaya over to one of the coalitions.

But if PAS is humiliated at the polls – and even if the BN coalition wins overall and takes power – then “Malaysian politics will undergo significant changes,” Chin-Huat wrote, adding: “If Amanah can supplant the PAS as the main Islamic party, the trend toward religious extremism would likely be reversed.”

Whether or not that will take place remains to be seen. But if it does, that will hopefully give the country’s opportunistic politicians one less excuse to advance more exclusivist and hardline religious lines as they have done over the past few years.