Pn Gained From Anti Umno Feelings Not Love For Pas Says Chandra

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Malay voters, especially the young, apparently shunned tainted parties, say analysts. (Bernama pic)PETALING JAYA: An analyst has rejected a PAS leader’s view that Perikatan Nasional’s impressive performance in the recent general election was due to the rising popularity of political Islam.
Political scientist Chandra Muzaffar said PN and PAS did well only because Malay voters had lost faith in Umno, which had previously commanded the support of a large segment of the electorate.
He told FMT that ongoing corruption cases involving top Umno leaders were key in shifting voters towards PN.
“The insistence on fielding candidates who were compromised on the question of integrity turned away Umno’s typical voters,” he said. ”So Malay voters turned to the party they felt most comfortable with, and PAS comes closest in claiming to represent Islam.”
Ads by KioskedChandra also said PAS’ model lacked content in addressing the “real challenges” that Malaysia was facing, such as inflation, unemployment and ethnic tensions.
“If PAS were to translate the votes into increasing support for the party, it must reconsider its ideological approach with greater depth to strengthen its support,” he said.
He said PAS could widen its influence if it could relate its principles and values to social and economic challenges.
In GE15, PAS candidates won 49 seats, the highest number among all individual parties. It contested both under its own banner and PN’s.
PAS international affairs and external relations council chairman Khalil Abdul Hadi recently said the party’s success in the polls showed political Islam had gained popularity in Malaysia and that the party’s conservative religious politics was becoming more attractive to young and first-time voters.
Khalil, the PAS president’s son, also said people wanted to see how the party could contribute to the country, “especially on welfare and economic issues”.
Ads by KioskedAnother analyst, Azmi Hassan of Akademi Nusantara, said PN’s popularity among first-time and young voters in GE15 could be due to their desire for a new government.
He said the more established Pakatan Harapan and Barisan Nasional had been “associated with negative political stigma”. PN’s time in the federal government was “extremely short”, he said.
He said these voters, in voting PN, dared to make a decision that older voters would not.
Some other pundits have attributed PN’s performance in GE15 to its use of TikTok to secure youth votes. They said the social media platform was a key source of political information for many young voters. - FMT

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