2000-2004: The New Century Explodes

As the new century dawned, PAS was in a position to count its winnings and survey the long road it had journeyed thus far. After being on the Malaysian political landscape for half a century, it was now the biggest Malay-Muslim opposition party in the country, with more than a million members, had managed to establish a presence in cyberspace and was in control of two states – Kelantan and Trengganu. For a party that once regarded itself as the ‘orphaned child’ of Malaysian politics, PAS had come into its own and had earned the respect that was being shown to it. PAS was then allied to the Keadilan and DAP parties, but there was no doubting the fact that it was the main opposition party in the country then. Crucially, the party had demonstrated that Islamism was here to stay and that it was set on the course of state capture.

Though PAS had begun to adopt the discourse of democratic engagement, there were still lingering reminders of the older PAS of the 1980s and 1990s in its ranks. The new generation of PAS technocrats and professionals had successfully given the party a new look by the late 1990s, but among the conservative ulama of PAS the old ways seemed best. To give Malaysians a glimpse of what the party had in mind if and when it would come to power at the Federal level, the new chief minister of Trengganu – Ustaz Hadi Awang – played the hudud card that he had tucked up his sleeve all along. Shortly after the elections of 1999, Hadi announced that Trengganu would also have its own hudud ordinances, and that the PAS state government was bent on Islamising Trengganu society in no uncertain terms.