With many Malaysians, especially Malays, angry at the Barisan Nasional (BN) government led by Dr Mahathir Mohamad over the jailing of Anwar Ibrahim, the opposition realised that the situation was ripe to form a coalition to try and break BN’s hegemony at the impending elections.
According to the newly-released second volume of the biography, “Lim Kit Siang – Malaysian First” by writer Kee Thuan Chye, DAP was split down the middle over the prospect of cooperating with PAS.
While most leaders agreed to take the plunge by cooperating with the Islamic party, Parti Keadilan Nasional (now PKR) and PRM to form Barisan Alternatif (BA) despite opposition at the grassroots level, then senior leader Karpal Singh was adamantly against it.
He has been quoted once as saying that PAS’s objective of setting up an Islamic state could only happen “over my dead body”.
Recalling the difficult times, former DAP strongman Ronnie Liu said he was in favour of the alliance as PAS was then led by moderates Fadzil Noor and Nik Aziz Nik Mat, who was fondly referred to as Tok Guru. Liu realised that it would be impossible to capture federal power without Malay support.
“Nonetheless, Karpal allowed the discussion to go on despite his opposition. And you know who melted his heart? Nik Aziz! On Karpal’s birthday, he bought a cake and knocked on the door of Karpal’s house. And after that Karpal changed his mind,” Liu said.
The joint manifesto of the BA did not make any mention of an Islamic state. Instead, it demanded the abolition of the Internal Security Act, and advocated the freedom of the press.
“It also championed the fight against poverty, corruption and abuse of power and called for increased intercultural and inter-religious dialogue.”
The new coalition was put to the test at the 1999 general election; the DAP managed to win only 10 seats, with the Chinese voters deciding to take a safer path by going for BN. Even Kit Siang and Karpal Singh both lost their state and parliamentary seats.
Many DAP leaders attributed the disappointing performance largely to the distrust of the Chinese electorate towards the alliance with PAS.
On the other hand, PAS was the biggest winner, increasing its parliamentary seats from seven to 27. It also succeeded in capturing Terengganu from BN in addition to retaining Kelantan, which it had held since 1990.
Two years later, DAP announced its withdrawal from BA after realising that it had lost much support after deciding to work with PAS.