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204 Hew Wai Weng

Muslim community and non-Muslims. Compared to ‘inward-looking’ and
‘Malay-centric’ PAS, PH, opined Nik Omar, had a better platform for Islamic
struggle in the Malaysian context. He let potential PAS supporters know that
even though he and other leaders had left PAS, they had not given up their
Islamic agenda. In other words, PAS is only one of several vehicles for Islamic
struggle and is not the religion itself—thus, ‘anti-PAS’ is not equal to ‘anti-
Islam’ ( eldnotes, 4 May 2018). Indeed, one of Nik Omar’s popular remarks
was, in Kelantanese Malay, ‘Ambo tidak ajak rakyat lawan Islam. Ambo ajak
rakyat Malaysia khususnya pakah Pakatan Harapan’ (I am not asking the people
to go against Islam. I am asking Malaysians to vote for PH).
Meanwhile, in Kelantan, Nik Omar’s brother, Nik Abduh, the PAS
candidate for the Bachok parliamentary seat, expressed his disappointment
with Nik Omar for going against their mother’s advice not to join a rival party
to PAS. Nik Omar was labelled ‘pro-IKRAM’ and ‘a traitor to PAS’s struggle’—
sentiments that caused him to su er a heavy defeat in Kelantan, the home
of many PAS loyalists. In contrast, in the Klang Valley, Nik Omar received
positive feedback from many Muslims as well as non-Muslims, suggesting
that urban, west-coast Malays are more open to the vision of political Islam
that PH championed (see also Ahmad Fauzi and Che Hamdan, this volume).
His talks in places such as Bangi and Shah Alam were well-attended, warmly
received, and widely covered in the media. Arguably, he played an important
role in helping PH win over fence-sitting Malay voters who would otherwise
have voted for PAS.
Some of the Klang Valley voters who have supported PAS in past elections,
especially since 1999, have been PAS sympathisers, but not loyalists. ese
non-loyalist PAS voters have included PKR supporters, ABIM and IKRAM
activists, and ordinary Malays who dislike UMNO. In GE14, they faced a
di cult choice: whether to vote for PH or for PAS. My conversations with
some PAS ceramah attendees made clear that they realised that PAS could not
win control of the government on its own, yet they worried that PH might not
be able to safeguard Muslim interests. As one of them told me, ‘I know it is
di cult for PAS to win in Selangor after leaving PR.… UMNO is corrupted
and PH has no clear Islamic agenda.… I have no option but to support PAS’
( eldnotes, 28 April 2018). Together with the support of ABIM and IKRAM
activists, Nik Omar’s endorsement boosted PH’s much-needed ‘Islamic
credentials’. If Mahathir Mohamad, with his ‘Malay nationalist’ outlook,
convinced many potential UMNO voters to switch their support to PH,
then Nik Omar, with his ‘Islamic credentials’, persuaded a signi cant number
of PAS voters, such as those in Bangi and Shah Alam, to vote for PH. Nik

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