Especially key are differing perspectives on the role of race and religion in government, and on the ethno-nationalist coalition that came to power in early 2020, supplanting the reformist coalition elected in 2018. [...] Dominik Müller finds that in the late 1990s, and somewhat episodically thereafter, PAS did seem open to compromising strategically on, or at least deemphasising, its Islamist policy objectives and convictions for the sake of gaining the ability to win, and hence to change the state from within. [...] Another series bearing the #yearinMCO hashtag (referring to the Movement Control Order issued in response to the pandemic) addresses not only the MCO itself and issues of equitable enforcement, but also, for instance, the implications of suspending parliament, the vaccine roll-out, implications of the digital divide for pandemic-era education, mental health and domestic violence amid shutdowns, an. [...] … When we know, clearly and deeply, what values and principles bind us as a nation, then we will finally have a way out of the mires and political impasses of today.”49 This focus for ABIM is part of a larger emphasis it shares with a cluster of fellow youth organisations on civic education, but with the aim of communicating a particular vision for the country. [...] A surge in institutional-reform initiatives — starting most obviously with calls for electoral reform that gained especial potency with the launch of Bersih, the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections, in late 2006 — was part and parcel of PH’s ascent to office, first at the state level as Pakatan Rakyat, and then as the coalition that ousted the BN in 2018.
Authors
- Pages
- 21
- Published in
- Singapore
