The outcome of last week’s Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) annual meeting is likely to change the Malaysian political landscape. It is the first time in nearly three decades that the Islamist party’s leadership has been dominated by leaders from only one faction within the party.

The conservatives (ulama) in the party, made up of religious scholars and clerics, effectively routed its rival reformist faction by winning all the party’s top positions and 17 of the 18 positions in the central committee. The women, youth and religious scholars’ wings are now dominated entirely by the conservatives, which hold different views from the reformists on the implementation of Islamic criminal law (hudud), and whether PAS should continue to work with the opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) coalition.

Significantly, in the aftermath of the win by the ulama, the party has adopted a resolution to break all ties with its opposition partner, the Democratic Action Party (DAP), throwing into question PAS’ political direction and that of the three-party PR pact.

… Mohamed Nawab Mohamed Osman is coordinator of the Malaysia programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University.