KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s first elections in 22 years without Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s dominating presence are shaping up as a fight for the soul of the Muslim majority, a congress of the hardline Islamic Party (PAS) showed on Sunday.

The challenge to Malaysia’s moderate policies comes at a time when Mahathir himself has warned of the growing popularity of religious parties around the world in the face of the West’s “war on terrorism”, which is often perceived as a war on Muslims.

Declaring a belief that PAS can wrest power from Mahathir’s United Malays National Organization (UMNO) in elections due within a year, the party congress emphasized its dream of turning Malaysia into an Islamic state complete with punishments such as amputation and stoning to death.

“They are planning to deny us victory but Allah is with us as long as we uphold Islam,” party president Abdul Hadi Awang told some 1,000 delegates at the closing session of the annual gathering on Sunday.

“We must be confident because no government is permanent except the government of Allah. Our mission is not to win, our mission is to save souls.”

While at the same time holding themselves out to be true religious elements in contrast to UMNO, analysts say PAS is trying to present a more moderate face to the 40 per cent of Malaysian voters who are not Muslims.

“PAS has been making strenuous efforts to engage with the non-believers and allay their fears about an Islamic state,” the New Straits Times wrote in an editorial on Sunday.

But, it added: “Make no mistake, PAS is situated within the Islamist movements in which the Taliban, Wahhabis and Al Qaeda lie at one extreme ...”, going on to describe PAS as “disguised extremists.”

Hadi said PAS would not force non-Muslims to abide by Islamic laws, but would try to show them the fairness of the Islamic system.

He stressed that PAS would follow the legal path to power and was against the terrorist attacks on the United States and in Bali in neighbouring Indonesia.

“We oppose prostitution, we oppose gambling and all other vices, but our way is not to bomb these vice dens, our way is to topple the government which allows these vices,” he said.

Observers said there appeared to be a slight swing in PAS’s new leadership line-up at the congress, with more moderate professionals winning key roles in the women’s and youth wings.

But the party’s highest decision-making body, the Syura Ulama Council, is still headed by PAS spiritual leader Nik Aziz Nik Mat, an unrelenting conservative who recently warned that women wearing lipstick invited rape.

And the election on Sunday of Hadi’s number two, Hassan Shukri who beat a more moderate professional for the post, showed that the conservatives still hold sway at the top.

“There may be more professionals in the PAS leadership but they hold little clout because the Syura Ulama Council is the one calling the shots,” a Kuala Lumpur-based diplomat said.

PAS captured a second state and tripled its parliamentary seats in the last election in 1999 to 27 against UMNO’s 73 in a parliament of 193.

A crucial element in the next election, which must be held by the end of 2004 but is expected much earlier, is that UMNO will be led by a new and untested leader, current Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who takes over when Mahathir retires next month.

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s UMNO has ruled since independence in 1957 through an alliance with Chinese and Indian parties, and observers say that even if PAS wins the battle for the Muslim soul, it is unlikely to gain enough support among these minorities to achieve its aim of taking power.—AFP