Official: Mat Sabu wins PAS No 2 with 420 votes

KUALA LUMPUR, June 4 — Popular PAS leader Mohamad Sabu has won the party deputy presidency with 420 votes, leading a group of progressive leaders to counter conservatives who prefer to link up with Umno.

The Penang-born Mohamad defeated incumbent Nahsarudin Mat Isa who received only 224 votes and vice-president Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man who came second with 399 votes. A total of 1,100 delegates voted in this year's party elections.

In the vice-presidential race, incumbent Salahuddin Ayub took top spot with 753 votes, Datuk Husam Musa was second with 660 votes while another incumbent Datuk Mahfuz Omar kept his post with 616 votes.

The losers were information chief Idris Ahmad with 491 votes, Kelantan exco member Datuk Mohd Amar Abdullah with 321 votes and former Perak mentri besar Datuk Seri Nizar Jamaluddin with 217 votes.

Party president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang was returned unopposed for the fifth term in the elections.

Sources had already told The Malaysian Insider that Mohamad won the deputy presidency but had to wait for official results for confirmation.

Mohamad, popularly known as Mat Sabu, was contesting the post for the second straight time against the three-term deputy president, who together with Tuan Ibrahim, are seen as leaders from the ulama or scholars’ group.

The three-cornered contest was billed as a contest between the party’s conservative ulama faction and the professionals (dubbed the Erdogans in a reference to progressive Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan).

The Erdogans are also called the “Anwarites” because of their support for PKR de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who wields influence in PAS through his preaching of pragmatic Islam and moderation, along with support from PAS spiritual leader Datuk Nik Aziz Nik Mat.

The Erdogans and the ulamas are considered two different perspectives of PAS as a party.

In the last PAS election in June 2009, it was also three-way contest with Husam carrying the main assault against Nasharudin and came near to unseating him, before losing by 199 votes.

Nasarudin polled 480 votes to defeat Husam, who polled 281, and Mat Sabu who came in a third with 261 votes.

Nasharudin, a university lecturer, has held the deputy presidency since 2005 and is said to have fallen out of favour with the grassroots after having been accused of pushing for Umno-PAS unity talks.

The subject of unity talks between PAS and Umno had dominated the 2009 PAS muktamar, which saw a number of leaders keen on exploring talks with Umno emerge as big winners.

More recently, top PAS and Umno leadership met at a Christmas Eve dinner, hosted by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong last year, during which the subject of Malay unity was broached once again.

Mohamad has promised that he would focus on three key areas — counter Umno-Barisan Nasional’s (BN) propaganda on how Malay interests would be in jeopardy should Pakatan Rakyat assume federal power, push efforts for PAS to get more non-Malay support and develop a more aggressive plan for PAS to replace Umno.