The only person he exempts from his harangue is Dr Mahathir Mohamad - whose “Malay People’s Proclamation” the PAS supremo said he backs unstintingly, although Hadi was a critic of the “asabiyah” concept, an Arabic term for tribalism. One has to read Hadi’s latest denunciation a few times to appreciate the extent of our good fortune in not having him at the central levers of power after GE15.

PAS had garnered the highest number of parliamentary seats as a single party and was poised, with an assist from a coterie of BN MPs and possibly those from Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS), to govern the country in tandem with Muhyiddin Yassin’s Bersatu, under the banner of Perikatan Nasional.   But this outcome was averted by the Yang Di Pertuan Agong who asked Pakatan Harapan’s Anwar Ibrahim to cobble a unity government together from a slate of Harapan MPs in conjunction with BN and GPS MPs.

Many doubted the wisdom and viability of this conjunction because of the presence of some alleged corruption-tainted powerbrokers in the alliance.

But the compact, subsequently reinforced by the entry of MPs from Sabah, is holding steady after nearly six months in the saddle, notwithstanding periodic ructions from within and without that cast doubt on its stability. No doubt, Hadi’s frequent fulminations against a whole gallery of villains in Malaysian political society has helped doubters of the unity government’s viability to swallow their reservations and hope it succeeds. 

His latest denunciation is imperious in the way it does not bother to give reasons for what he claims. Hadi makes several extraordinary, and even bizarre, claims with seemingly no compunction at all for wanting to utter them. He has, in the recent past, given vent to some of these claims, but in the latest instance, he lumped them all together to unleash an all-inclusive salvo.

It’s chilling to imagine that this man could have been at the central levers of federal power had not Anwar, BN chief Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and GPS head Abang Johari Openg decided to obey the behest of the King to cooperate to form a unity government. It would be misleading to dismiss the rhetorical gyrations of Hadi as examples of momentary excess which aides and colleagues, on reading them as a draft, would advise deletion.

Hadi going too far

This possibility can no longer be the case because Hadi has repeated these slurs over the years and they can no longer be taken to be aberrations or temporary excess. In eschewing reasoned argument as a vehicle to convey his views, he is declaiming in the best Ash’arite tradition which holds that God is all power and will, and has no need for reason.

In a philosophical battle with the Mu’tazalites (God is all power and will; He is also reason) in the 12th century, the Ash’arites won out and prevailed ever since. Hadi is a legatee of the Ash’arite tradition. It is important, for non-Muslims especially, to understand this distinction.