Delivering Development, Enforcing Shariah

Whenever the Islamist party PAS comes to power in Terengganu, its political agenda has been to combine populist-type development programmes with the wish to turn Terengganu into a shariah-compliant state.Terengganu’s state budget is however heavily dependent on the federal government, to the tune of 80-90 per cent. This hinders the state government’s policymaking and implementation, especially when the federal government is controlled by its political opponents.This article argues that the polit