PAS must make strides to win the votes of the non-Malays and non-Muslim in its quest to seize federal power in the next general election, Abdul Hadi Awang said.

He said this was crucial for the Islamist party and its partners in the Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition moving forward.

“We did a post-mortem and found weaknesses and strengths. Among the weaknesses were our failure to get voters who are not Muslims and the insufficient number of seats,” the PAS president said.

To this end, Hadi called on Gerakan, a component party in the opposition coalition, to do more and explain the benefits to be derived from having a PN administration.

“The responsibility of attracting non-Muslim support and explaining to them that justice and harmony would be guaranteed under PN rule must be carried out, especially by our friends in Gerakan,” he declared while addressing the 69th PAS Muktamar in Selangor today.

The Marang lawmaker emphasised that the party’s quest to unite Muslims did not mean that it would ignore the rights of the non-Muslims and non-Malays in the country.

He gave his assurance that the party will strive to preserve freedom of religion and ensure the rule of law is observed.

In the 2022 general election, PAS and its allies in PN captured 73 parliamentary seats while Pakatan Harapan (PH) scored 82 seats.

PH went on to form a unity government with Barisan Nasional, which had won 30 seats, Gabungan Parti Sarawak (23) and Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (six). – October 20, 2023.