The heat of the 13^th General Election (GE13) can certainly be felt everywhere in Malaysia now. Flags of the Barisan Nasional ruling coalition can be seen strewn everywhere, side by side to the flags of the Pakatan Rakyat opposition coalition. The nation is gearing up for the upcoming general election, which would probably be held in the coming weeks but no later than 27^th June 2013. Prime Minister Najib Razak described the GE13 as the ‘mother of all elections', probably due to the changing political landscape of the country. Malaysia had been traditionally ruled by the Barisan Nasional Coalition (successor to the Perikatan) since independence from the British. However, the political landscape began to change about five years ago when the newly formed Pakatan Rakyat managed to take away a huge chunk of the parliamentary seats from BN. In the 12^th General Election, Pakatan Rakyat (PR) gained control of five state assemblies and made significant gains at the federal level, denying the Barisan Nasional (BN) a two-thirds majority in the federal parliament.

Three major communal parties, namely the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA), and the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) dominate the BN Coalition. These are all race based, sectarian, secular parties although they claim to support the idea of ‘racial harmony' in their alliance. The PR Coalition on the other hand is dominated by an odd alliance of the People's Justice Party (PKR), The Democratic Action Party (DAP) and the Pan-Islamic Malaysian Party (PAS). PKR, the party that was initiated by Anwar Ibrahim, is essentially a secular party. DAP is a Chinese majority party which claims to be multicultural and multiracial in nature but has, in many occasions, expressed its anti-Islamic stand. PAS is essentially an Islamic party whose written objective is to see the implementation of Islam in Malaysia.

The upcoming GE13 sees all the main parties engaging themselves in various political campaigns which are full of deceit, slander and defamation. In this plethora of vilifying campaigns, as Muslims, we are certainly bound to ask the question - who stands for Islam? Can we expect any of these political parties to stand up for Islam? Obviously, we cannot expect non-Islamic parties or whose members are overwhelmingly non-Muslims to support nor defend Islam. MCA, MIC and DAP are undoubtedly out of the question. PKR have clearly announced that the main ideological tenets of the party are social justice, progressivism and liberal democracy. Islam has never explicitly been in their agenda. UMNO is a party whose members are essentially Malay Muslims. It is the biggest party in the BN Coalition and has always maintained that Islam is one of their main agenda. They have been successful in pulling in numerous scholar including young Islamic scholars to become members of the party. The Young Ulama' of UMNO (ILMU), whose numerous activities include justifying and defending the opinions and statements of UMNO leaders, including opinions and statements that are clearly un Islamic, is seen as the ‘other wing of UMNO'  - the ‘Islamic wing' of UMNO. There may be sincere members of ILMU but one has to clear that joining a party with a definitive secular agenda would never do justice for Islam. The sincere members will only end up destructing Islam, not stand for it!

For many, it seems that the only party that would stand for Islam is PAS. At one point in its struggle, PAS was comparatively clear in defining its objective. It was going for the establishment of an Islamic State. In 2003, PAS published the "Islamic State Document" detailing, albeit in a simplified and erroneous manner, their model of the state. This was their agenda. However, this agenda changed drastically. Justifying that the coalition is more important, PAS decided to suspend any mention of the Islamic state and begins to talk about the ‘State of Care and Opportunity'. Although PAS claimed that their basis of struggle has not changed, their actions and decisions on various issues related to Islam has at best been rather nebulous. As an example, the Malaysian political arena was recently stormed by the issue of the use of the word ‘Allah' by non-Muslims. The official fatwa delivered by PAS is totally different from the statement given by the President of PAS on the same issue. Furthermore, PAS has always maintained, and on this, PAS has always been consistent, that the party is committed to democracy. It is not even clear whether the party views democracy as a means to an end or an end itself. What is clear is that PAS, as an Islamic party is itself unclear about democracy and its ramification on the party's struggle of Islam. As had already been manifested, despite claims by its members that PAS is still consistent on its path, it is quite apparent that PAS has certainly swayed under the pressures of alliance and democracy. With its commitment to democracy, PAS can never be committed to stand for Islam.

So who would stand for Islam? It has to be a political party whose ideology is Islam, whose methods of struggle follows exactly the method of Rasulullah (saw), whose consistency prevails in the face of injustice and oppression, whose thoughts about Islam as a solution to life's problems are pure and whose realization of the dominating political poison is crystal clear. May Allah help us achieve the victory of Islam by the re-establishment of the Khilafah "Caliphate" very soon indeed, Inshallah!

Dr Muhammad - Malaysia