By: Al Jafree Md Yusop
Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) not only has to contend with an uneasy political relationship with Pakatan Rakyat, but also has to address the false perception people have about socialism.
It is a difficult task to change the public perception of the socialist party but it is not going to deter PSM chairman Dr Nasir Hashim from taking corrective measures.
According to him, PSM has been accused of being a bunch of terrorists and communists, among others.
It didn’t help PSM’s cause that during the 13th general election (GE13), PAS president Datuk Seri Hadi Awang even described PSM as a party that glorified the communist movement with photographs of Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Karl Mark and other communist leaders.
To rectify the situation, PSM has decided to form a non-electoral alliance with NGOs to educate the people on socialism.
The left-wing party has also come under attack over its alleged atheistic leaning, but Nasir was quick to refute the allegation.
He said socialism is not far from the teachings of Islam.
He added that in Surah Al-Qasas from the Quran it is mentioned: “And we wish to give blessings to those who have been exploited on earth and wish to make them leaders, also make them the inheritors [of this earth].”
“That is exactly what we are fighting for, so the claim that socialism is against the teachings of Islam is baseless,” said Nasir. He added that the socialist ideology has to take into consideration the local surroundings.
He said it is important to study how a noble idea like socialism can be effective in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country like Malaysia.
“It has to go through a process of adaptation, because while we see that socialist countries like Cuba and Venezuela have developed, we have to further study whether their ideas there could be adapted to our struggle in Malaysia in the local context,” he said.
Small political parties like PSM have always been a victim of the electoral system being practised in Malaysia.
The first-past-the-post system tends to favour a dual-party system, where most of the time there are only two major choices for the voters to choose.
The entrance of a third party will always be perceived as an attempt to split votes through three-cornered fights.
PSM, founded in 1998, is an offshoot of Parti Rakyat Malaysia. For the first 10 years, PSM was denied registration as a political party by the government because it was considered a threat to national security.
However, the Home Ministry gave it the green light in June 2008. PSM won only one parliamentary seat in GE13 when its candidate Dr Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj retained the Sungei Siput seat in Perak.
