Pak Haji Hadi Awang berputar a la Inul Darista

As people say, it takes two hands to make a clap.

UMNO wants to drive a wedge into Pakatan, especially between PAS and DAP because when these two parties of diverse ideology mutually support each other, UMNO is the main loser.

But it would require PAS to be a willing captive if not a proactive wannabe partner of UMNO. Pak Haji Hadi Awang fulfils this role in his advocacy for 'unity talks' with UMNO.

His hubristic obsession to be the primus inter pares among Pakatan leaders has been his Achilles heel, where his failure to be so has motivated him towards seeking a political rapprochement with UMNO as a means of crawling out from under the shadow of Anwar Ibrahim/PKR.

And he probably hasn’t been the only advocate of ‘unity talks’. In my previous post One and one-half PKR blokes for PAS? Mustafa Ali, then PAS elections director and now the new PAS sec-gen, had said of the covert ‘unity talks’:

“During the talks that Hadi, Anwar (Ibrahim) and Haron Din (PAS deputy spiritual leader) had with Tok Guru Nik Aziz on the issue of unity government… maybe it was assumed that this message was relayed to DAP, but it was not. It may be true that they are unaware of the issue.”

I also commented that Anwar Ibrahim had not denied nor rejected Mustafa Ali’s revelation that he had a tête-à-tête with Hadi Awang, minus the DAP, on the proposed ‘unity talks’.

Anyway, back to the frenetic attempts by UMNO to split the Pakatan - Bukit Gantang was a prime example of how the Chinese voters marshalled by the DAP had tipped the odds over for the PAS candidate, in an electorate where UMNO had actually obtained 53-54% of the heartland votes. Kuala Terengganu was an earlier case of such collaboration.

Of course the DAP will similarly benefit from PAS support in marginal seats. Thus the PAS-DAP collaboration, cooperation and cum-cheng have terrified UMNO-BN.

For the last 40 years, UMNO-BN had benefited from the erstwhile PAS-DAP's dislike, suspicion and even contempt for each other, but the 08 March 08 experience demonstrated the old UMNO ‘divide & rule’ no longer worked all that well. The BN has since been trembling because 2013 could possibly see a new ruling party in Putrajaya.

But alas, thanks to the personal ambition of Pak Haji Hadi Awang, UMNO saw a delightful glimpse of a wee fissure in the Pakatan coalition. Needless to say they have invested in expanding it, hopefully into a Grand Canyon.

Facing very strong disapproval from his own PAS rank & file, Pak Haji Hadi Awang was forced into flip-flopping on the ‘unity talks’. Recently, to mitigate his very unpopular proposal, he started to berputar (gyrate) like Dangdut icon Inul Darista, by appending ‘conditions’ to such talks, which was echoed by Anwar Ibrahim.

Inul Darista

Now, Pak Haji Hadi Awang has continued his Inul-Darista-tic gyration by claiming the talks would be limited to administrative issues like reforms of the EC. And finally, confronted by both his spiritual leader and a majority of party members, he has outdone Inul's sensual vortex thingy, dismissing the talks as just an academic discussion – for more read The Centre for Policy Initiatives’ Academic Discussions or Umno Stooges.

PAS spiritual leader Pak Haji Nik Aziz had been so livid with rage (no, not about Inul, but) about the ‘unity talks’ advocated by the party president’s men that he told deputy president Nasharuddin to leave PAS for UMNO if the latter was so keen on ‘unity’ with UMNO – see Malaysiakini Nik Aziz to Nasha: 'Quit PAS, join Umno'.

Needless to say, Pak Haji Nik Aziz had also been waiting for an opportunity to shoot Nasharuddin down since the deputy president’s unprecedented insult to him a couple of weeks ago, when Nasharuddin so arrogantly and publicly dismissed the spiritual leader’s exhortation for PAS members to stay away from UMNO.


PAS new sec-gen Mustafa Ali, who had appealed to Pakatan leaders last week to drop the embarassing issue of 'unity talks' was in serious damage control today when he (also) spun: “However, let me reiterate that we are committed to Pakatan. We will not be traitors. If Najib is not agreeable to having talks with PKR and DAP, then there will not be any unity talks."

"The concept of unity is where all political parties should be involved in resolving national issues. It is a misconception that the unity talks will only include PAS and Umno.”

Bullsh*t!

Looks like UMNO is the only one benefitting from the PAS fracas, but let me tell you, there are few tears or sympathy among Pakatan ranks for Pak Haji Hadi Awang or Nasharudin.

BTW, DPM Muhyiddin has been so confused by Pak Haji Hadi Awang's non-stop evolution of how the 'unity talks' would be, that he complained of PAS continuously changing the goal-post.

Aiyah Tan Sri, think Inul Darista lah, ta'kan sweetie saperti kayu ma? wakakaka!