Marriage of Convenience: Muafakat Nasional

UMNO (United Malays National Organisation) and PAS (Parti Islam Se-Malaysia) which were both championing Malay rights and Islamic rights respectively formed a Muafakat Nasional (MN) after both lost in the 2008 general election in Malaysia. Both parties were deepening their propaganda by working together to attract Malay voters in Malaysia. All ethnic Malays are Muslims in Malaysia.

UMNO had been governing Malaysia for more than 60 years but the Malay population, except for those elitists linked to UMNO, is largely quite poor. PAS governed Kelantan for a few decades but the state remains one of the poorest state in Malaysia. When both of them joined force to revitalize their political influence, their new rhetoric garnered some support among the Malays believing that MN was finally and truly going to fight for their race and religion. On paper, their political propaganda made some sense but but it is merely propaganda and nothing else.

With the ongoing political maneuvers, UMNO had gained upper hands by out-playing PAS and PAS's the other partner, Bersatu which is also a splinter group from UMNO, in recent months. UMNO and PAS are now in collision course again in Johor state election after UMNO's landslide victory in Melaka state election without working with PAS. At the same time, UMNO, PAS and Bersatu are still able to work together to hang on to the majority to form national government of Malaysia. 

You can see the contradictions among three of them. Muafakat Nasional or not, UMNO and PAS are just political marriage of convenience to gain power to rule the country or any state therein. The morale of the story is that their political narratives are just not to be believed at all.

They failed to uplift the wellbeing of Malays who are also Muslims for the last 60 years. One cannot trust any of them to do a better job for the country or any state in the next 1, 5, or 60 years.