KUALA LUMPUR: At what should be PAS’ finest hour, having helped to wrest the popular vote away from Barisan Nasional in the last general election, the Islamist party finds itself imploding as infighting breaks out between rival factions — those in favour of cooperation within Pakatan Rakyat (PR) against those who are not.

Things are turning ugly in PR’s only party with a religious ideology, with anonymous cyberattacks erupting between the factions, as PAS wages an internal war over its political future.

The infighting in the country’s largest opposition party has become so vicious that people now wonder if the trust they had put in PAS in the 13th general election (GE13) in 2013 was misplaced.

The feuds in PAS are coming ahead of its 61st general assembly and elections in June, which observers say will be the most critical and fiercest since former president Tan Sri Asri Muda was brought down in 1982.

The party elections will determine whether PAS continues with PR, which won 52% of the popular vote in GE13, or goes solo.

Depending on who controls PAS after June, the party could even strike a bargain with its arch rival, Umno, to bolster the deteriorating support of its age-old nemesis among Malay Muslims.

It is because the stakes are so high this time that the infighting between factions has sunk to new lows.

There are now several Facebook accounts set up to smear rivals, with the latest ploy being an audio recording purportedly of some leaders conspiring to overthrow PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang.

The ulama assembly on Saturday reflected how dire things had become, as the gathering of normally reserved and mild-mannered ulama (Muslim scholars) descended into bouts of name-calling.

Political analyst Norazlan Hadi blamed the party’s top leadership for allowing the discord to reach such critical levels, adding that in previous elections, the acrimony was never allowed to get this bad.

“The question now is: is all this being sanctioned by the elders of PAS? If not, why allow it to get this far?” asked Norazlan of Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris.

On Monday, Mohamad Sabu, better known as Mat Sabu, became the latest target of a smear campaign when an audio recording surfaced, allegedly of him discussing ways to bring down Abdul Hadi.

Besides Mat Sabu, other leaders such as election director Dr Hatta Ramli have been accused of

plotting to overthrow the president.

As the debate rages in PAS over which direction to take the party, and as political manoeuvring is conflated with cherished religious and ideological values, one can expect the name-calling to worsen. — The Malaysian Insider

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on February 26, 2015.