This is all about Hadi v moderates in PAS

Thank you, Mohd Zuhdi Marzuki.

Thank you, for your honesty and bringing into the open what many supporters of Pakatan Rakyat have suspected for a while now and which The Malaysian Insider has touched on in the last few days: that the removal of Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim as the Selangor menteri besar has become a sideshow.

The real issue is the percolating fight in PAS between those aligned to party president, Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang, who are more comfortable sharing power with Umno than with PKR and DAP.

It is a fight within PAS on whether the Islamist party should continue to preach the Pakatan Rakyat mantra of inclusiveness and justice for all Malaysians or return to its narrow path of Malay and Muslim supremacy.

This battle in PAS will reach a crescendo on August 10 when the party leaders meet. But in the meantime, both factions – the moderate, professional class and the hardliners – are engaged in a sizzling behind-the-scenes war of words.

And this was the context in which Zuhdi's WhatsApp message was leaked out. To be fair to the director of operations of the PAS Research Centre, no one knows what comment from the other PAS CWC member or member elicited that response from him.

Besides calling Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim a dictator and wishing that he retired from politics, Zuhdi also offered a political scenario out of the Khalid impasse: that PAS form a simple-majority government with Umno and retain Khalid as MB.

Zuhdi has been put to the sword on social media platforms and given the antipathy of the party grassroots towards Umno, any move to join forces with Umno could really split Pas down the centre. But that is a story for another time.

Zuhdi has been on the defensive but really, he does not need to defend his remarks.

It is good that voters know the thinking of those aligned to Hadi. It is important that voters understand that what is at stake is not a simple change of the chief executive of Selangor.

The PAS hardliners are entitled to change course, bail out of Pakatan Rakyat and return to the welcoming embrace of like-minded religious and racial chauvinists in Umno.

Apparently, PAS hardliners find it suffocating having to share power with DAP and PKR elected representatives, and they believe that Islam is under threat and that non-Muslims and liberal Muslims must be kept in their place.

Good luck to the Hadi camp. But what about the so-called professionals and moderates?

They know the position of the hardliners. Are they also going to turn their backs on a more inclusive Malaysia?

Are they going to forget the legions of Malaysians who tossed aside decades of misgivings about PAS to vote for PAS candidates contesting under the Pakatan Rakyat banner in 2008 and 2013?

Are they willing to join forces with Umno politicians with whom they have battled so vigorously on the corrosive issues of corruption, race and religion?

In short, are the moderates going to sell out the people who put them in office?

It may have started out as the “Kajang move” or the grand plan to remove Khalid as Selangor MB, but today, it is much more than that.

It is about the future of PAS, the future of Pakatan Rakyat. And allowing Umno back into power through the back door. – July 29, 2014.