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The Islamic party believes its efforts to attract non-Malays and non-Muslims have worked By Reme Ahmad, THE STRAITS TIMES AS VOTE-COUNTING started in earnest on Saturday evening, the chiefs of Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) wondered whether they would be able to retain Kelantan.
Just 24 hours later, the conservative Islamic party had three menteris besar and had won 23 seats in the federal Parliament and 83 seats in the various state assemblies. Just as stunning, some of the seats were in urban areas where the number of Chinese and Indian voters is high. From having just one menteri besar, or chief minister, in its Kelantan stronghold, PAS now has menteris besar in Kedah and Perak too. The Kedah win - by 16 state assembly seats - was especially sweet, for it came despite the fact that 35 per cent of the state's voters are Chinese. Though most of the swing votes collected by PAS were due to voters angry with the Abdullah administration, PAS cited some positive trends. It said there had been a big change of attitude among the minority Chinese and Indians towards the Islamist party. PAS deputy president Nasharuddin Mat Isa cited an incident last week when he was to address an open rally in Bachok, Kelantan, where many Chinese live. 'A Chinese businessman offered to be the emcee, so we let him. That kind of incident had never happened before,' he said. PAS vice-president Husam Musa said party members had reported many instances all over the country of non-Malays who had helped adorn lamp posts with PAS buntings, and waved its flags at political rallies. He said: 'We have overcome that barrier with non-Muslims. Now PAS must go to the middle of the stream, which is what we have been trying to do in the past few years.' Not bad for a party whose energies were often expended in trying to fend off worries that its concept of an Islamic state would deprive non-Muslims of their rights. This negative image has changed. Even Umno leaders who watched PAS closely noted changes in the rival party. 'Today, Umno has engineers and lawyers, so do they. And they do not just wear Arabic robes,' said Mr Ramli Mohd Yunus, secretary of an Umno division in Kedah. PAS has also tried hard to convince outsiders that life under its rule is not that bad. In the last few years, it has been bringing in busloads of non-Muslims from all over the country to Kelantan. 'We can eat bak kut teh and drink beer, and having pig farms in Kelantan is not as sensitive as in other states,' said Mr Hu Pang Chaw, a regular churchgoer who is also president of the 2,000-strong PAS Supporters' Club here. These baby steps in reaching out to other races and religions are a far cry from just four years ago. Then, its Islamic State Document produced before the 2004 general election gave voters a fright due to its plans to implement an Islamic criminal system that includes amputation for thieves. Today, PAS leaders stress the need to work with people, whatever their creed. Asked yesterday whether PAS would push to implement Islamic law in the states it now controls, party president Abdul Hadi Awang said he would need to consult its partners in the opposition alliance. That, too, is a far cry from a few years ago, when PAS said it would rather go it alone than give up its idea of an Islamic state.
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