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184 David Kloos

On the night of 29 April, I listened to a speech by Dr Rosni Adam, deputy
head of Muslimat PAS and one of the standard-bearers of women professionals
in her party. A dentist with a clinic in Cheras, she was the PAS candidate in the
parliamentary seat of Bandar Tun Razak, Kuala Lumpur, running against PKR
heavyweight Kamaruddin Jafar (who won the seat). Rosni spoke for about 45
minutes. I was struck by the near-complete absence of religious content and
language, which she left to other speakers, including the master of ceremonies,
candidates for the state assembly, and a young religious teacher, all of them
men. Instead, she focused on issues like corruption, social problems, education,
the humanitarian crises in Syria and Myanmar, and the importance of having
more women representatives. To reinforce her arguments, and in line with
the fact that political campaigns in Malaysia, like campaigns elsewhere, have
become heavily personalized, she talked extensively about her background and
career. She came across as earnest, if not stern, no-nonsense, and matter-of-
fact. However, in Facebook videos and other social media outlets, she featured
in performances that can only be described as ‘ustazah-like’. In one video—a
live recording of a house visit—she used an ostensibly ‘soft’ voice to convey
a religious message buttressed by extensive referencing of the Quran. As I
have argued, neither one of these images—the woman expert on a stage, the
ustazah-like gure in a home—is remarkable in the context of Islamist politics
in Malaysia. e striking aspect was, rather, the seemingly e ortless shifting
between both repertoires, presenting a simultaneous mastering of di erent
appearances and forms of ‘verbal performance’ (Carr 2010: 19).
A few days later we travelled through Kelantan. In this state, the rivalry
between PAS and Amanah was more intense than elsewhere. PAS considered
Kelantan as its own territory, but the outcome was uncertain; since PAS formed
the incumbent state government and had its own criticisms and scandals
to deal with, opposition alliance Pakatan Harapan was considered a serious
threat. PH elded many candidates from Amanah. While this made sense in
10
a place with many PAS voters, it also created dilemmas. More than elsewhere,
for instance, Amanah candidates struggled with the ‘fake-PAS’ label PAS used
to discredit them in the eyes of voters. ey were forced to ask themselves,
therefore, whether they should look more, or rather less, like PAS.
One of the candidates we followed was Dr Ha dzah Mustakim, a general
practitioner with a clinic in Kota Bharu and a well-known face in local NGO
circles. She contested the state seat of Tanjung Mas, a semi-urban area not
far from the state capital of Kota Bharu. Her opponents, the incumbent
Rohani Ibrahim (PAS) and Madihah Aziz (UMNO), were both also women.
Ha dzah’s strategy was to stand out rather than emulate the image of the

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