Dennis Ignatius
~ Provoking discussion, dissent & debate on politics, diplomacy, human rights & civil society.
PAS is The Existential Threat of Our Times
10ThursdaySep 2026
Posted in Democracy, GE16, Multiculturalism, Politics, religious freedom
[1] At last week’s Muktamar, PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang resorted to the same old duplicity dressed up as magnanimity. Non-Muslims, the PAS president declared, could serve as ministers in a PAS-led federal government — provided they avoided portfolios that formulate policy for Muslims. He suggested the Works Ministry and Forestry Ministry as acceptable berths. Everything else would be off-limits.
[2] On closer examination, his offer is just a mirage. He never defines what “policies affecting Muslims” actually means — and since Muslims constitute the majority, virtually every government decision affects them in some measure. That ambiguity is not an oversight; it is the point. It could be stretched to exclude non-Muslims from any position at any time. Three months ago he declared: “I do not want Johor to be controlled by liberals or non-Muslims. Let Muslims govern Johor.” That is not rhetoric. It is a reiteration of Malay-Muslim supremacism — a belief that Malaysia belongs to one community, with everyone else merely accommodated on Malay-Muslim terms. Its ultimate effect would be to deny non-Muslims their rightful and constitutionally-guaranteed role in the governance of their own nation.
[3] After May 13, non-Malay political parties –– MCA, MIC, Gerakan –– accepted Malay-Muslim dominance of key ministries and positions as the price of political participation. They called it pragmatism. What it was, over five decades, was capitulation. Now Hadi is doing something more dangerous: converting that arrangement from political convention into a theological imperative — from an injustice that was potentially reversible into one that is divinely and permanently ordained.
[4] Malaysia’s Federal Constitution is unambiguous: this is a secular democratic state. The provision that Islam is the religion of the Federation was never a mandate for theocratic governance. Hadi and PAS have spent decades weaponizing that clause to justify an agenda that would transform this country into an Islamic state — one in which non-Muslim rights are not constitutional guarantees but concessions, revocable at Muslim discretion.
[5] That is why he simultaneously calls for the Constitution to be replaced. He dismisses it as a colonial-era legacy — when it was in fact a sacred and solemn compact between Malaysia’s ethnic communities, agreed to by the Malay rulers themselves — and the very foundation upon which the nation was built.
[6] Hadi is an extremist demagogue who knows that exploiting race and religion is the only path to power for someone with nothing else to offer. Malaysia faces a host of serious challenges including corruption and the abuse of power — and his answer is to push for more and more restrictions on non-Muslims as if they are the cause of all the nation’s problems. This is not governance. It is the systematic exploitation of race and religion to divide a nation and seize power.
[7] A particular word for Sarawakians and Sabahans, whose role in GE16 may be decisive. Do not allow PAS into Putrajaya — not for any price. Whatever concessions are dangled, understand they will be temporary. Letting PAS into federal power in exchange for short-term gain is not a deal — it is a Trojan horse. If it comes to power, PAS’s shadow will inevitably fall on Sabah and Sarawak as surely as it falls on Semenanjung. Both states have many justifiable grievances against Kuala Lumpur, but on this there can be no doubt: the threat PAS poses is as real for them as it is for every other Malaysian — and we must face it together.
[8] For Malaccans, the moment of truth may arrive before GE16 — state elections could be called at any time. But whether the ballot is cast in Malacca or in a general election, the message must be the same: non-Muslims in particular must reject PAS completely, without qualification, and reject every party that enables it or contemplates cooperation with it. Make no mistake: PAS is an existential threat to the Malaysia our founding fathers built. A PAS-led government would not merely result in a change of policies — it would dismantle the constitutional foundations of our plural society and impose a religious order they explicitly rejected. A vote for PAS is a vote for the Talibanization of Malaysia. That is what it comes down to.
Dennis Ignatius | Kuala Lumpur | 10 September 2026
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